Putting It Together and Starting Again -Another Model

After being a teacher for almost 20 years, it has been in the last two, as I re-entered the academic field that I have had the greatest opportunity to reflect upon what I do, and how I do it in contrast with the knowledge of experts. It has been tremendously helpful to be able to look at what my practice, my worries, the sudden insights, and find out that there is a place for them in theories and other people’s experiences.

I think it is in the nature of being a teacher that you can’t help but ponder at the results of your efforts, and try to find new and better ways to accomplish the educational goal you have set for yourself and for the students you guide into the adventure of learning.

Some people say that we teach as we have been taught, I think it is true up to a point, because you also teach as differently as possible from the way you were taught (from the things you used to hate), and you also teach in the way you like to learn, whether you are kinesthetic, or more orally oriented, or visual.

I have seen people who (in their personal lives) always do the same things and their teaching strategies haven’t changed either. I also know people who are curious and eclectic, and so is their teaching style, they are highly creative, but often disorganized.

We all have ideas, and experiences that would be wonderful to tap, so we can grow as professionals and people, but we often don’t feel confident enough to put our thoughts in writing, even though we often dare to experiment with our students….

In Costa Rica, the rich experience gained by teachers about what works and doesn’t, is mostly lost, because we do not reflect and share our findings as part of the normal course of our profession. We buy the books other foreign teachers help develop, and do our best to adapt the methodologies they propose to our contexts, but the knowledge gained through our work is not reintroduced into the creative loop. On the contrary, we try to change our contexts to make the student population conform to the results expected (and indicated) by the books.

We have to find the time, and the money, to gather our teachers’ collective knowledge, and use it to create more sophisticated resources that they can use in a variety of contexts for teaching.

About Reflective Teaching

Leo Barlett’s article: “Teacher development Through Reflective Teaching”, from Second Language Teacher Education (1990), book published by Cambridge University Press, moved me deeply. First, it confirmed the feelings I had that it is not possible to be a good teacher if you are not a person that reflects upon his or her actions, thoughts, and beliefs in order to follow a life-long learning process.

Second, that teachers (who play a very important role in facilitating or obstructing the process of development of human beings), should know not only what they are doing, but why they do what they do. I am not referring only to the academic aspects, but to the relationships and interactive dynamics they establish with the learners, with their co-workers, and the educational authorities.

I was talking to a teacher last Wednesday, and at one point XX said: “the problem is that I hate it here”.  X was an accountant who was at the moment studying to become a certified public accountant, yet X was also teaching fourth grade students Spanish, and Social Studies.  What’s worse, X had been doing it for the last 5 years, and I suspect that the students being taught  were as unhappy as X was. What a great contrast with another teacher who was also teaching the same students, but who absolutely loved her chosen profession.

What I told the accountant-teacher, was that now that at least, X had admitted it, it was possible to  start working towards alleviating some of the anguish by changing  the ways X did things. It is much worse when we encounter teachers who think they like their job, but pass their deeply buried dissatisfaction to the students, and then complain about their behavior and lack of interest.

I fully agree with the author when he exhorts teachers to take time to think about what they are doing, how and why. What I think would help, is to have time to do this, as part of the regular work schedule.  Too many times, teachers’ hours are filled with lessons, and correcting student works or reflecting about how to improve their performance, is left for the hours that are stolen from family and very needed relaxation.

Something I might try this coming year is to record my observations, and then download the files into my computer, so I don’t have to take time transcribing what I said.

About Building Community in the Classroom

I thoroughly agree with Ellen Booth’s article that highlights the importance of creating a warm and welcoming environment for students from the start. I believe teachers always try to set up some kind of frame of reference or ground rules, when classes begin, and I also think that students do the same. Perhaps the learners’ process is not as conscious as that of the teachers, but I have the idea that the first weeks of class are a kind of dance in which one partner is represented by the teacher, and the other by the students. Each partner makes a move, trying to get in the lead.

As teachers we try to create a class atmosphere and dynamics that we interpret as conducive to learning. A powerful reason to make a great effort to establish the dynamics you as a teacher favor from beginning on, is because students learn as much from what you do as from what you don’t do. So, in the face of a void, they will quickly fill it with their own patterns. These usually have to do with their home environment, mixed previous school experiences since students tend to recreate in the ways they interact that which they are most familiar with. When both systems (what you want and what they want) coincide, it is heaven; but when they differ or even oppose each other, the result is a power struggle that the school and the teacher not always win.

We tend to think that the “dance” I mentioned above happens only at the beginning of the school year, but in reality, the dance lasts all year long, with moments of more or less intensity. So, we have to be awake the entire year, or risk finding ourselves reacting to what the students unconsciously do, putting out fires and exhausting our energies.

Small classes, experienced, caring teachers, and clear rules go a long way to prevent disasters. Making students feel as proprietors of their learning process also helps (it reduces possible feelings of rebelliousness). Every year, there are several new students, but most students go on from previous years; reaching out to those who can be positive role models, or moderators of other more extreme student behavior, may help build bridges to the environment you want to recreate.