Pronunciation practice
Reading text 4
Tips for people thinking of becoming teachers
Some young people who are good at a subject at school and who have one or two
teachers they look up to might be considering becoming teachers themselves. What
these young people need to remember, however, is that being good at a subject
doesn't mean you will necessarily be a good teacher. There is a lot more to teaching
than knowing your stuff. For the right kind of person, teaching is a career that can
be immensely safisfying. However, if you are not up to the challenges of working
with groups of 30 or so overly-hormonal teenagers, it can leave you feeling that
someone just dropped you very cruelly into a pit full of lions.
To be a good teacher you have to be good at finding ways to get young people
interested in the subject - to arouse their curiosity. This requires a profound
appreciation of the way young people think and feel - something which many people
lose as they pursue a narrow interest in their chosen subject. People may graduate
from university with an excellent qualification but then find it almost impossible to
capture the imaginations of students who come into the classroom wishing they were
still out in the yard with their mates. Sometimes people who are too hooked on their
own subject quickly become disillusioned with the difficulties of working with
teenagers who are not patiently waiting to hear about poetry or photosynthesis.
Teachers also need to be good at what is called classroom management. They need
to decide how the pupils should enter the room, where they should sit, how the
desks should be arranged and they need to come up with a good lesson plan with an
interesting variety of activities to keep the pupils motivated. Discipline is also a huge
issue. Teachers can't just talk enthusiastically about their subject. They also have to
be good at policing the classroom. However well a lesson is planned there may still
be disruptive pupils who must be dealt with firmly. Even the good pupils will quickly
lose respect for a teacher who obviously cannot effectively control unruly elements.
The demands of maintaining order in the classroom are one reason why it is vital for
teachers to have a high level of self-esteem. It is not uncommon for individuals who
devote themselves to their subjects and do very well at them to have a low level of
self-esteem. Unresolved teenage problems of mixing with their peers can mean that
even as adults these people still have a general sense of social insecurity. This can
lead to catastrophe when these people try to start teaching. If you don't feel very
confident in strange social situations you will find the demands of classroom
management just too much to cope with.
People who have this insecurity either keep too much of a distance from the pupils
and fail to establish any meaningful communication or they do the opposite and
nervously try to be a friend to everybody. The latter in particular is a recipe for
disaster. Teachers need to be able to relate to their students and need to be
approachable so that students feel able to ask for help if they get into difficulties, but
the classroom will slide into chaos if the teacher tries to create the impression that
we are all mates.
Some people who grew up in closely-knit neighbourhoods and went to a small local
school will experience a huge shock if they go to teach in a large inner-city school.
Gone are the days when teachers inspired a sense of awe in their pupils. Young
people who are unable to achieve anything in the school system and those who have
discovered sex and drugs and rock and roll and have come to the conclusion that
school sucks know that in reality there is nothing the teacher can do to hurt them.
Corporal punishment is forbidden and the student can just refuse to follow
instructions. Students who are only interested in being the centre of attention can
cause a huge headache for a teacher who just wants to get down to reading the
poems she so carefully chose for the lesson.
It is a challenging job, but all the challenges can be met. There is no situation so
serious that it cannot be dealt with effectively by a well-trained teacher, but to
become a well-trained teacher you need to start out with the right kind of character.
You need to be made of a certain kind of stuff (quite tough stuff) to make it as a
teacher.