BY ANGELICA L. PFLEIDER
AS STATED in my previous article, I am spending eight months in Madrid. It’s part of a program by the Spanish embassy that recruits people from English-speaking countries to serve as assistant teachers.
I feel that this experience will be very fruitful because not only will I get to experience Spanish culture, but I also get to see first-hand just how challenging the teaching profession is.
The saying is “there are no bad students, only bad teachers.” If a student has poor performance in school it’s the teacher’s fault for not motivating the student enough. The teacher is “biased” if they call out a particular student.
I have seen how the teachers I am helping in school are trying their best to make the lesson more interesting, but there are just students who simply don’t care.
There’s the misconception that it’s the teachers’ job to catch the attention of the students, but each person has their own needs and that is too much for one person to handle alone. It’s one versus a horse of 20 to 30 where one student has a hard time understanding the lesson, one student can’t sit still or concentrate, and one is just plain defiant.
This is especially imminent in the primary levels, which is the most fundamental part of the learning experience, but also when the kids are at their most hyper state.
One of the teachers I am assisting is in a constant dilemma. She teaches the exact same lesson to two different sections. One listens to her, and one doesn’t even care that she’s in the room. Why is it like this?
The lesson and the teaching methods are the same. Even the age group of the kids is the same. The teacher exerts effort to give reviewers and go over the lesson as much as possible, but once the exam day comes there are several segments left blank.
It’s when the kids are too spoiled at home that they think they can have the run of the school, when studying isn’t given importance, the social stigma that “discipline” is equivalent to child abuse.
Unrealistic expectations from academic boards that are a nightmare for kids with attention disorder. In the US, there is a shortage of teachers especially in the secondary level. The salary isn’t even a factor. The most prominent factor is the workload.
As someone who spends a lot of time with teachers I can see they are doing their best to make sure that each child gains more knowledge after every lesson.
Teachers are not super humans, though. They need as much help as can be given. The next time a child clearly doesn’t do well in class, instead of blaming the teacher try asking the kid if he’s actually paying attention in class. (angelica.panaynews@gmail.com/PN)
