Saturday, October 23, 2010

What makes you good at what you do?

Yesterday I attended a meeting for our district, to discuss the changes to the syllabus for next year's matrics. Once again, I was really impressed with our curriculum advisor. She's the first person I've met from the WCED in a very long time who actually speaks from the hips - she tells it like it is, she doesn't sugar-coat stuff, or (even worse) side-step the issues, or try to make her problems mine. I was really very impressed. I hope that the bureacracy at the WCED doesn't wear her down.

The meeting took place in a school just across the railway line from where we are. Although I've been that side of the tracks before for several different events, I was struck afresh at the disparity between my experiences of teaching and education, and those of my colleagues in those areas.

I consider myself a good teacher, but if I was asked to work in those circumstances, would I still be such a good teacher? What makes a good teacher, really? Is it the ability to effective use of the resources at hand? Is it about the ability to communicate effectively with OR WITHOUT resources? Is it about particular character traits? I'm not sure. I know I have the potential to be a GREAT teacher, not just a good one, but I really don't know whether I could still say that in circumstances vastly different from my own.

When I read this story this morning, about a teacher who has been banned for life for incompetency, it made me wonder afresh. I recalled teaching in one particular school in the UK, in which I found myself not performing. The reason I stopped caring, and stopped trying, was because the kids were so horrible. Their attitude towards learning depressed me, and because I was immersed in such a culture of poor work ethic, lack of respect for others, and general apathy, I found my strength sapped and my will to perform eroded. (Eventually, I wound up depressed and then resigned in order to take myself out of the situation.)

So what makes you a good teacher? Can anyone with resources can look good? or is there more to it than that? Will the same person be regarded as a good teacher in all circumstances? Is that a quality of who you are, or a choice you make despite your circumstances? And who holds you to account for it in SA? Your Subject head? Your principal? or do you hold yourself accountable?

1 comment:

Sunshine and Shadows said...

I've had the experience of working at a school without resources - not even air conditioning. It was so hot and miserable. Old books, no computers, no money, yet I feel we did well because we cared about the students.

Now I am in a school that has a lot of money, and yet the thing that helps my students the most is the fact that I care about them. They know I care about them, so their behavior is better and they try harder.

I think I could teach with no resources and have my students do okay. It wouldn't be easy, but I could do it.