Teaching is one of the hardest jobs on Earth, we’ve all at some point in our lives have seen a teacher reaching the brink of insanity (or turning insane) in his/her quest to restore order in the class and feed you with information that you will either forget and never use in your whole life or the kind of stuff that will stick with you like a لزقة جونسون ( a johnson and johnson’s band aid) for the rest of your life.
It sucks to be a teacher in so many ways, poor salaries, poor behaviour from students and even worse from their parents, curriculums which are way too long for the school year, kids who want to be spoonfed every single word you teach them, your principal expects you to be a teacher, a psychiatrist, a scientist, a doctor, an events organizer and a IT whiz all at once and so much more!
I consider myself priveleged not to have teached in a school environment, where you face both students wanting to learn and those who are not willing.
I’m a teacher trainer by day and a computer teacher at various institutes by afternoon and night, although I might add that I have had no studies in education other than a single ’train the trainers’ course I took earlier this year.
Working in these areas, the majority of the people you come across are there because they want to learn, the teachers fill in the appropriate forms and get them signed and switch around their timetables just to get to the training, whilst in institutes ,putting it bluntly, pay for it!
I think the best way to learn how to teach is by teaching!
Luckilly for me, whenever I mess up a lesson ( and this happens alot when you use technology and bloody Windows keeps crashing or the Internet is not connecting or even worse really slow) I can always rectify it with the next group I teach and once I get it right, I feel this soothing sense of satisfaction quite similar to the way you feel after drinking a cold glass of water in a month like this one.
Another joy of teaching is when something you say makes your students have a ‘Eureka’ moment and they all go ‘aaaaaaahaaa’ and nod collectively. You just know that what you’ve said will stick with them for a while.
The ability to change someone’s behaviour is truly amazing, and with all the pitfalls and downsides of being a teacher, this makes up for all of them…
Hey! I came across your blog posting after searching for teaching jobs and your post on The Joys of Teaching makes an interesting read. Thanks for sharing. I will search online more next Tuesday when I have the day off.
Ca you tell me where this carton comes from – I have seen it o another website and am trying to remember the site.
Thaks
Since when were teacher-trainers unable to formulate their arguments with correct use of punctuation and sentence-construction ?
As I have had to say to many of my students in England, while marking their written assignments, “Inaccurate use of basic English detracts from the quality of any piece of work, no matter how laudable the content.” My wife thinks I should just get a life !!!!!!!!!!!
Dave, it’s inspector gadget, a very cool cartoon I might add
Tom B, thank you for being such a good custodian of the English language, but I think you did not notice that English is my second language, and meaning not to brag but throughout my years studying in university, many of my tutors were surprised by the high level of my English surpassing those of my native English speaking peers. Oh, and I think you should listen to your wife more often
Hello,
I love your graphic and would like to use it for something I am working on for school. Can you give me the original source so that I may site it?
Thank you
Hello,
I love your graphic too and would like to use it for a site i have. I have sited this site and included address. I am a teacher in australia and can relate to your comments all too well. I have included a link on my wikisite to yours, hope you don’t mind.
I think parents, well a large section of the community don’t wha it’s like.
Which tells me we have to get them into the classroom to experience it. If there has been 1 thing that gets their eyes open and [on side, if you will] is letting them live the experience regularly. This i know is a toughy because then we all as teachers feel [and probably are] being judged, all in all by unqualified othrs. But we should’nt let that get in the way of getting people to value what happens and what effort time and emotion gets invested in the students of today, [and their "parents"].
Thank you
Mr OBie