Every morning, when I open my emails, I get "Today's inspiration" - a newsletter with a tiny quote of the day. Today it came up with a quote that made me think of a discussion I had with a teacher a while ago. The quote is the following:
Now I had this conversation with this first year teacher, who, after 2 months of starting work was on the edge of a burnout already. She sat in front of me and cried for about one hour nonstop.
I don't know if she read the quote above or where she got her ideas from, but she thought that everything she is using in order to teach must be from her herself. The games must be from her own head, the flashcards must be made by her own hands and so on. So she literally drew all her flashcards by hand herself. I had asked her many weeks prior to this meeting why on earth she is doing all this? There are tons of things on the internet. Just print and go. But she said "If I don't do it myself I feel like I'm cheating on my students". At that time I found the idea quite strange, but let it pass and thought, once she will be busy during the school year she will see that she doesn't have enough time to prepare all her things herself and eventually do what every teacher does .. go on the internet and take advantage of all the great work other teachers have done for you. But I was wrong.
When the school year got busy, she would literally not sleep at night, just to plan her lessons and do everything herself by hand. The quality of her work became really bad as this behavior took a toll on her mind and body and now she was sitting there with a nervous breakdown thinking that she is a bad teacher.
I told her that I understand that she wants to do everything herself. When I started to teach English I actually HAD to do everything myself. There was not a lot of material out there yet as most schools started to teach English at the age of 10 (boy, I feel old!). So I know how it feels like to sit and work and come up with ideas until 3 am, get up again at 7 and go to work. But in our times now, there are so many resources out there, you just have to pick.
I understand that you want to be the best and most unique teacher the world has ever seen, but even teachers with 20 years of experience face problems and nobody is perfect. How many teachers do you think make ALL their materials themselves for each class that they teach? In the past 15 years I came across 0 teachers like this.
Let's be honest, we all go on the internet and get books and we copy what we can in order to save time and make life easier for us. And it is okay!! That doesn't mean that you are a second rate teacher, because you took from somebody else. It doesn't mean you are not unique and it doesn't mean that you are not yourself.
What it means is that you save time and energy that you can use in order to come up with extraordinary ideas on how to use those resources. And this is where you become a first rate of yourself as a teacher. It is your personality, the way how you talk to the children, the way how you engage them, motivate them. Not to forget the time you gain in order to spend it on yourself (!) and your family. I always tell "my teachers", going into the classroom and teaching the topic is only 20% max of your job. The rest is looking at your students, look after their needs, see what they miss, see how they react to certain things, adapt your behavior, approach and speech to each child, have a great rapport with the kids and the parents, plan engaging lessons, look for new ideas out there, network with other teachers, exchange ideas, discuss cases, the list is so long .. and this is what makes you a first rate version of yourself as a teacher. Not the content, but who you are as a person and the way you are transmitting the knowledge you have learnt yourself.
Ask yourself this question. Imagine the teacher you liked most in your school time. What do you remember from him or her? The detailled explanations they gave on a grammar topic, a math problem etc or was it their personality, how they treated you and what they taught you for life?
I didn't find any person yet who told me "I remember how he exlained the present progressive to me and I thought it was so fascinating!" ;)
I told her that I understand that she wants to do everything herself. When I started to teach English I actually HAD to do everything myself. There was not a lot of material out there yet as most schools started to teach English at the age of 10 (boy, I feel old!). So I know how it feels like to sit and work and come up with ideas until 3 am, get up again at 7 and go to work. But in our times now, there are so many resources out there, you just have to pick.
I understand that you want to be the best and most unique teacher the world has ever seen, but even teachers with 20 years of experience face problems and nobody is perfect. How many teachers do you think make ALL their materials themselves for each class that they teach? In the past 15 years I came across 0 teachers like this.
Let's be honest, we all go on the internet and get books and we copy what we can in order to save time and make life easier for us. And it is okay!! That doesn't mean that you are a second rate teacher, because you took from somebody else. It doesn't mean you are not unique and it doesn't mean that you are not yourself.
What it means is that you save time and energy that you can use in order to come up with extraordinary ideas on how to use those resources. And this is where you become a first rate of yourself as a teacher. It is your personality, the way how you talk to the children, the way how you engage them, motivate them. Not to forget the time you gain in order to spend it on yourself (!) and your family. I always tell "my teachers", going into the classroom and teaching the topic is only 20% max of your job. The rest is looking at your students, look after their needs, see what they miss, see how they react to certain things, adapt your behavior, approach and speech to each child, have a great rapport with the kids and the parents, plan engaging lessons, look for new ideas out there, network with other teachers, exchange ideas, discuss cases, the list is so long .. and this is what makes you a first rate version of yourself as a teacher. Not the content, but who you are as a person and the way you are transmitting the knowledge you have learnt yourself.
Ask yourself this question. Imagine the teacher you liked most in your school time. What do you remember from him or her? The detailled explanations they gave on a grammar topic, a math problem etc or was it their personality, how they treated you and what they taught you for life?
I didn't find any person yet who told me "I remember how he exlained the present progressive to me and I thought it was so fascinating!" ;)
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