Posted to Facebook on 29/2/2020 2:44 PM
Posted to The Age (18/2/2020) on 19/2/2020 (Not published by the newspaper)
Commenting on "'Like being thrown off a bus': Mentor program to ease load on teachers"
https://www.theage.com.au/national/victoria/like-being-thrown-off-a-bus-mentor-program-to-ease-load-on-teachers-20200218-p541zo.html
There is a Chinese saying, "It takes 10 years to grow a tree, but takes 100 years to grow a person".
Although all of us live on the same planet, many young people segmented themselves in their world of instant result and glorification, and therefore teaching is not really suited for them, even if teaching was their ideal and ambition when they were children.
There is a misconception and misuse of the words teacher and educator, and therefore the any articles referring teachers as educators could be wrong.
While an educator is a skilled teacher, not all teachers are educators. An educator does not focus on curriculum and syllabus like a teacher, but on development and progress.
I was a lecturer and teacher in the tertiary sector for over 2 decades. For the last two years, I have been a volunteer working hands-on in classrooms with prep and primary students. The Principal and those teachers I have helped appreciated the way I "coached" the students, and invited me back again this year.
During my time in class, I have met several young upcoming teachers in internship or workplacement. I can visualise the tough journey ahead of them. They may have the formal qualifications, but lack the life experience to deal with rather unpredictable behaviour of young children and explosive behaviour of teenagers.
How can a young teacher, unlikely to possess the knack to pacify a child like a parent or handle a teenager even bigger in size? (I had a student at a college who failed in his assignment wanted to punch me because he could not accept the verdict!)
The big competence gap of students within a class is a complete nightmare for many experienced teachers, let alone the inexperienced young ones. The education system decides that streaming is bad for social interaction, and allows the very smart students to be among the very average and slow learners in a class.
Who should the teacher give more attention to? When attention is paid to one group, the others are left out and feel frustrated. The overall performance is just average, and that is not what a young teacher, or in fact for the experienced ones as well, aimed to achieve. The teachers might think that they fail to be good teachers!
Being passionate in teaching is not good enough. What they received in their formal training may not be adequate. They need to learn to be smart to deal with many different situations using "Sun Zi Bing Fa" - Sun Zi Military Strategies or Sun Tze - The Art of War (incorrect translation of the book title); they need to learn marketing to promote their presence in the class, develop techniques for the current teaching style and help the students to recognise their learning styles.
Many people get turned off by the word "marketing". The normal off-the-shelf marketing course will not suit the classroom environment. It has to be modified, like many TAFE courses, to target specifically at education.
While mentoring may help young graduates and teachers to overcome some of the pressures anxiety, I believe they need a very patient inspirational motivator too boost their confidence level and improve their grit mindset.
Thank you for reading.
