There is a problem with these images, and the meanings behind them: either you are a superhero, saviour, saint, 100% a teacher or you aren’t a teacher at all.
If you have a life outside of the school or can’t save or help everyone you are automatically a crap teacher, you don’t care about your students and you don’t know what you are teaching them.
Every day we, as a part of society, experience some form of media about teachers, whether through television and cinema or newspapers, personal experience or advertisement. By experiencing teachers in these ways we develop understandings and perceptions of teachers that may not and in many cases are not completely authentic. But what does this mean for teachers? What does it mean when their students think of them in the ‘Harry Potter’ sense, which is that they live in their classroom and have no family, literally married to their school or chained to their desk?
The media which influences many aspects of our daily lives makes it difficult for teachers to actually be effective teachers without worrying about the repercussions. Students begin to expect their teachers to be able to solve the most complex problems, problems like depression, abuse, intellectual difficulties, and racial, religious and cultural differences. Is it the teacher’s responsibility? Should a teacher do anything but teach? Should a teacher be a superhero?
A teacher spends 6 hours a day with their students, not counting extra curricula activities and tutoring. In other words over a quarter of a teacher’s day is spent educating their students, being a mentor, a career, a behaviour manager, a councillor, a doctor, a psychiatrist, a psychologist and on top of that a friend. Are we expecting too much of teachers? Perhaps we are, considering they (apparently) only work 9am to 3pm five days a week, and have 12 weeks of holidays a year. Isn’t all that just a little bit too much to expect them to cope with in such little time to do it all in?
I just wanted to ask these questions to get you thinking about what you expect of your teachers, your children’s teachers, or the teachers of the students of the future, of the students who may one day become your doctor, your local chemist, your store owner or the Prime Minister. What does six to ten (plus) hours of your day mean to you? What does $41,000 mean to your family?
If you were expected to spend every minute of your life in your selected profession, if you were asked not to leave at the end of the day, if you couldn’t leave your work AT work and go home and spend time with your family... would you consider yourself a person? Teachers are people too...
Future entries will include the teachers view... and I’ll be asking for your input through comments and the poll to the right of the page.
Your,
Pre-Teach-Er
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