I have had a first professional development with my teachers last week and from that meeting gave me some understanding of what I am considering as important – the relationship between the teachers and their many teaching experiences.
This is indeed not a simple relationship based on “just copy and paste”. And I believe that those with such a view is bound to fail. In the simplistic version of process, the teacher receives input and tries to emulate them. The input may be the middle managers’ advice, instructions or fellow teachers’ suggestions, or it may be a piece of reading (after the staff meeting, it seemed to be the ‘in’ thing). It seems useful, or successful, and so the teacher attempts to replicate it in the teaching. And this simple model may appear to work for a time, but I believe that it will inevitably collapse.
There are a number of reasons I feel are reasons for this failure. One is that I strongly believe that teachers have to find their own teaching practices, and this will be unique to the teacher, just as mine is to me. Copying others may be useful for essential scaffolding activity (especially at the beginning), but like all scaffolds, it is only for “a short period of time”. In fact, drawing from my personal experience, I believe that teachers often begin their initial teaching with some models of themselves as teachers. This I think is more important in the long run. These models are obtained from various sources, the most common are based on the TV- teacher model (the inspiration teacher, the teacher who mold our future..) or the my-best- teacher model (my favorite primary or secondary or junior college or poly or even NIE teacher).
As I watched the TV-teacher model during the last staff meeting, I see the teacher as dynamic and attractive. She is mold-breaking where she has an instinctive understanding of her student and makes astonishingly effective relationship with her student, even he is the least promising. I see this as an idealistic stimulus for a beginning teacher, and indeed there is nothing wrong with being ideal. But I wonder the notion of teaching portrayed as dynamic performance.
Alternatively, many teachers start with a self-image based on their own favorite teacher(s). It is not unusual for them to start their teaching with a ready-made set of teacher mannerisms, often based on their “best moment in class” during their school days. The image is reworked during actual school experience, and the teachers make good progress as they came to understand this process – when they understand, not only that they have to move beyond this initial replication mode as they attempt the many practices, and when trying to be somebody else would not work for them. We all are different people in different circumstances (even among classes we may behave differently). We know that even sometime students behave differently when they are sitting in their favorite lesson. Students though young are instinctively spot and dislike fakery, hence the teacher has to find a teacher-version of himself/herself that proceeds authentically from inside, not outside.
This initial simplistic model needs to be discussed with my teachers, because we need to learn the important lessons from them. More significantly, we would realize that teaching is a complicated juggling of acts, and that simple replication is not enough, and this lesson need to be reworked to the many new inputs (through sharing from other teachers) that will form the real improvement in teaching.
This is indeed not a simple relationship based on “just copy and paste”. And I believe that those with such a view is bound to fail. In the simplistic version of process, the teacher receives input and tries to emulate them. The input may be the middle managers’ advice, instructions or fellow teachers’ suggestions, or it may be a piece of reading (after the staff meeting, it seemed to be the ‘in’ thing). It seems useful, or successful, and so the teacher attempts to replicate it in the teaching. And this simple model may appear to work for a time, but I believe that it will inevitably collapse.
There are a number of reasons I feel are reasons for this failure. One is that I strongly believe that teachers have to find their own teaching practices, and this will be unique to the teacher, just as mine is to me. Copying others may be useful for essential scaffolding activity (especially at the beginning), but like all scaffolds, it is only for “a short period of time”. In fact, drawing from my personal experience, I believe that teachers often begin their initial teaching with some models of themselves as teachers. This I think is more important in the long run. These models are obtained from various sources, the most common are based on the TV- teacher model (the inspiration teacher, the teacher who mold our future..) or the my-best- teacher model (my favorite primary or secondary or junior college or poly or even NIE teacher).
As I watched the TV-teacher model during the last staff meeting, I see the teacher as dynamic and attractive. She is mold-breaking where she has an instinctive understanding of her student and makes astonishingly effective relationship with her student, even he is the least promising. I see this as an idealistic stimulus for a beginning teacher, and indeed there is nothing wrong with being ideal. But I wonder the notion of teaching portrayed as dynamic performance.
Alternatively, many teachers start with a self-image based on their own favorite teacher(s). It is not unusual for them to start their teaching with a ready-made set of teacher mannerisms, often based on their “best moment in class” during their school days. The image is reworked during actual school experience, and the teachers make good progress as they came to understand this process – when they understand, not only that they have to move beyond this initial replication mode as they attempt the many practices, and when trying to be somebody else would not work for them. We all are different people in different circumstances (even among classes we may behave differently). We know that even sometime students behave differently when they are sitting in their favorite lesson. Students though young are instinctively spot and dislike fakery, hence the teacher has to find a teacher-version of himself/herself that proceeds authentically from inside, not outside.
This initial simplistic model needs to be discussed with my teachers, because we need to learn the important lessons from them. More significantly, we would realize that teaching is a complicated juggling of acts, and that simple replication is not enough, and this lesson need to be reworked to the many new inputs (through sharing from other teachers) that will form the real improvement in teaching.
Yes, you have nail edit squarely spot on.
ReplyDeleteAn effective teacher is someone who is both authentic as well as credible.
As you have said, pupils can tell when a teacher is fake, so the "copy and paste" does not work.
A teacher must be honest in wanting to help pupils learn, grow and succeed. Many teachers fail their pupils because they have not believed that these pupils can succeed in the first place. We must be real in believing in them.
Sharing of best practices and adopting them is the 1st step, the individual teacher needs to unpack the rationale and spirit of the practice and make it their own.
This leads to being credible, being an expert in their content and pedagogy, enabling their pupils to learn.