Articles

Articles from a selection I have written for The Times Educational Supplement

• Teaching Practice
• Being an Inspirational Teacher
• Look After Yourself!
• First Jobs
• Setting up a Classroom
• Skills Tests

Being an Inspirational Teacher

There will be times in your career as a teacher when you are exhausted and disheartened. There will be Monday mornings when the children all forget their homework/lunch/manners and you can't wait for the lunch bell - but before you run away screaming, remember why you became a teacher in the first place. However cynical and curmudgeonly they may like to appear huddled over the kettle in the staff room, people come into teaching for one main reason - and it's certainly not the dazzling wages! We enter the profession because of the children. Entertaining daydreams of 'Dead Poet's Society' we enter teaching glowing with the knowledge that it is truly ourselves who will change the world as we inspire our classes to achieve great things.

Think back for a moment of your own schooldays. Think about that certain teacher that made your imagination soar. I remember waiting desperately to follow my older brother and sister into Nirvana - Mr. Lovatt's Third Year Junior Class (now Y5). He was an ex - army PT instructor, who taught us to walk on our hands and turn cartwheels in PE lessons. His classroom was filled with, to my ten year old eyes, all manner of exotic and bizarre curiosities. Coarse mammal skins, powdery turquoise lichen, glittering crystal geodes - all of which our delighted fingers were encouraged to probe and explore. In the Spring Term we moved from our old Victorian Redbrick school to a new, open plan school on a large green field. We spent the whole summer digging and planting up a huge wildlife pond, watching jelly blobs magically morphing into wriggly black commas, that became green rubber tiddlywinks regarding you with baleful yellow eyes. Inspired? I was in a permanent state of grubby bliss - and I was learning about volume, area, soil sampling, life and the living processes in the raw!

What did both teachers have in common to be counted as 'inspirational'? Number one on the list has to be enthusiasm. Whatever the subject matter, they fired us with their own excitement. Secondly - personality. We wanted to please these people and be praised by them. This was not due to some cynical manipulation on their part, but rather a response to the way they treated their pupils as individuals, making time to build relationships. They treated us as though we were important, and valued as people and we tried hard to live up to their expectations.

Being an inspirational teacher requires effort, and being willing to go the extra mile. It is not just the teachers who win awards who are inspirational - there are thousands out there, spending hours building 'Ice Caves' in their role play areas, weaving willow dens in the school grounds, putting on productions and raising the self esteem of any child fortunate enough to cross their path.

Teachers entering the profession are a delight precisely because of their enthusiasm and excitement. The inspirational teachers are the ones who despite tiredness and seemingly overwhelming paperwork and meeting schedules never lose that feeling.

Tips:

• Visualise your own 'inspirational teacher.' Why was he or she so important to you? How did he/she make you feel?
• Never be afraid to have fun with your class. Perform for them a little - they learn best when they are being entertained.
• Make your learning environment stimulating and exciting, filled with interactive displays and esteem - building celebrations of effort as well as achievement.
• Put effort into building relationships: use 'Circle Time' and co operative games to encourage your class to share their feelings and experiences with you and each other in a safe environment.
• Keep a brief journal of 'good days' - the memory of the child who tells you they couldn't wait to be in your class will sustain you through those days when shelf stacking seems an alarmingly attractive career option!

Reproduced by kind permission of: Times Educational Supplement.