The Challenges of Teaching

The next chapter that I read in my book titled "Teaching from the Inside Out" is called “The Challenges of Teaching”. I thought that this would also be a good chapter, as we have been focusing on the challenges in schools and teaching alike.

Larry and Jim say “Here is the truth about teaching. Your life as a teacher will be up and down, repeatedly. Teaching is sometimes wonderful, sometimes joyful, and sometimes uplifting. Sometimes you will tear your hair out. Sometimes you will cry. Sometimes students, at any age, are so precious that you can’t help treasuring the experiences you share with them. Sometimes, just when you think they couldn’t care less, they prove they can.” I really enjoyed this quote as it emphasizes the word SOMETIMES. The way that you can interpret these situations and the way you act upon them will determine the outcome.

This chapter discusses five challenges that they find are the most common and important.

Challenge One: Teacher Satisfaction

The most satisfied teachers are the ones who want desperately to be teachers. “The finding suggests that a person would almost have to be foolish to stumble into teaching as a last resort and expect to be satisfied.” I completely agree with this statement as it is not something that everyone is able to do with success. In order to be satisfied as a teacher, it is important to realize that there will inevitably be issues in every aspect of teaching, but just realizing this will help prepare teachers. “Rather than trust a series of experts, we think that teachers must grown towards their own expertise.” Just as there are no students that are alike, they are no teachers that are the same. We all work in different ways and we need to be able to grow towards something that is going to work for us as an individual.

Challenge Two: Becoming Self Aware

How do we ever really know how our teaching affects our students? Teachers need to be able to self-monitor and achieve a sense of self awareness. The authors suggest that in order to help with this, it is important to find a critical friend who will be able to tell you the truth about how you are doing. If not, how will you ever know? And worst of all, what if you find out after it is too late?

Challenge Three: Discipline

“Since most students you will teach are kids, it probably would be wise to expect them to act like kids.” They are acting this way simply because they are kids. It is also important to note though that although they are kids, we still want to encourage kids to grow into adults. Many teachers try to make examples out of kids in order to set up their rules in the classroom. They purposely wait for a student to act out and then discipline them for all of the other students to watch. As we want to encourage maturation, doesn’t it make more sense to make an example of those who are doing what they are asked to do? For example, if a student is sitting still when asked to, encourage this behavior by letting them know they are doing a good job. I know that this was not always the case in my education experiences.

Challenge Four: Struggling to Compensate for a Troubled Society

As we all know, there is more to a child’s life than school, so it is important for us to help them with their daily problems as well as their academics. This is a challenge that the authors say is something that most books do not deal with. 58% of students say that their teachers influence them, yet only 9 % of teachers in their education career have made an impact on their lives. “More than 9 teachers out of 10 (91%) were not memorable.” That is very sad, and yet I think I can only remember two teachers in all of my education who made any type of impact on me.

Challenge Five: Burnout

Although this is a hotly debated issue within education, the authors suggest that this is something that rarely occurs. It is more likely to happen to an older teacher than a younger and most teachers who have gained enough experience are usually able to avoid it. It is mainly important to avoid stress and this can lessen the chances of burnout. Otherwise, it is not as big of an issue that everyone says. Overall though, I believe that everyone deals with things differently.