5 posts tagged “illlustration”
The topic this week on Illustration Friday.
Last week the word for Illustration Friday was “momentum”, which got me thinking because I seem to have lost my momentum during my teaching training recently. Although my lessons have been going well enough and I have built quite a good report with the students and the rest of the staff, I have a growing suspicion that I might not be cut out for teaching after all. The reason being that I am a hopeless disciplinarian.
When I am faced with a class of well-behaved intelligent kids I have no problem teaching them. All my best qualities as a teacher come to the fore, my lessons are enjoyable and productive and I quickly develop a close relationship with the class. But when I am faced with a class of ruffians I am at a loss. I just don’t have it in me to be domineering. I absolutely hate making people do things they don’t want to do and usually I avoid situations where that is required of me. If a student is not interested in the subjects I teach, I have no desire to persuade him or her otherwise. If they don’t do their work and fail their exams I don’t particularly care. I am exclusively interested in the people who take Art and Design because they want to and they want to get somewhere with it. For these people I will do all that I can to help them achieve their goals.
To reach the people who want to learn there needs to be a conductive learning environment though and that is where the policing work in teaching comes in. Even the best of classes will have the odd kid who wants to tip the apple cart and it is up to me to put kids like these in their place. But I am so terrible at it. I don’t yell at them, I don’t come across is threatening and I don’t punish them. I have always relied on treating the students I teach, even those who give me a hard time, with respect and kindness. It is a tightrope to walk though because it is easily seen as a weakness and a license to push me even further. My classes therefore go either very, very well, or not well at all.
Thankfully most of my classes go well, which makes the rowdy, hard to control ones seem less important. Still, after teaching a difficult class I always ask myself the same question: What am I thinking going into teaching? I must be mad!
