Sunday, July 13, 2008

Things I didn't know about teachers until I became one

1. Teachers are not always as confident or prepared as they may look.

2. Even when my students don't necessarily tell me what's wrong, I can tell if they are having a problem in their lives because it affects their performance in the class. A lot of times people's performance will be affected by outside circumstances that have little to do with their motivation, study habits, or intelligence.

3. I am surprised how sometimes students will share very personal details of their lives with me, things that, if it were me, I wouldn't tell someone that I didn't know that well. I appreciate their trust.

4. It's not that you are being sneaky and getting away with passing notes or sending text messages in class without us knowing about it. We know about it. We just decided not to do anything about it at the time.

1 comment:

Laverna said...

What really gets to me is #2. I had one student in my orchestra class this last school year that was all excited to learn to play the violin.
She was a very, very shy, quiet girl but learned quickly. I had hopes that her success with music would help to boost her self-confidence.
Unfortunately, her attendance became very sporadic and, despite my efforts to contact the parents, she stopped coming all together. Her mother had enrolled her in piano lessons, which I hope will benefit her. I just can't help but feel so sad for this little girl. She positively glowed anytime she was told she did something well, but took her mistakes too seriously. All of this directly influenced by her home life.