Teacher is a very important person in children’s life. Teacher spends much time with children during their school days. But children do not usually know about the problems, which young teacher usually faced with.
First of all it should be mentioned that the first working day on a new job is the most difficult and also the most important thing in life of everybody. Before the first day at work, a new teacher is very unsure and frustrated, he is inconvenient and frightened. Jim Lang felt the same. The first time he felt self-confident was when he helped a group of students to remember a title of the book they had read. He writes:
Hey, I know something. I am one of the literature experts around here. If you are having a literary emergency of any sort, call Dr. Lang; he knows what the hell he is talking about (Lang 12).
But still, it was a great challenge for him to go on his first lesson to students. He was worried about a lot of questions, which may concern a young teacher: whether the students would like him, whether he would be able to maintain discipline in class, whether he would be able to organize his schedule so that he could find time for his job and family (a wife and two daughters).
In the morning of his first day, he was very nervous. Lang describes almost every minute of his preparing as if it would be his last day in life. When he came to the class he didn’t know what to do. He was trying to overcome his nervousness and to calm down. Walking to his class he tried to remember the advice to young teachers he was writing before:
- If you want to establish rapport with students and create a good climate for discussion, arrive in class at least five minutes early and try to engage them in casual conversation.
- The first day of class is the most important day of the semester. It sets the tone of the semester and should offer students a taste of what they will be experiencing throughout the course. Do not just walk in, read the syllabus, let them go early. Engage them. Get them excited about starting the semester (Lang 12).
But when Lang entered the classroom, he understood that all he knew about teaching was difficult to work on those “bodies” (Lang 11), as he called the students. Nobody looked at him, the students were doing their own business. He wanted to disappear, to finish the class without starting it, he writes, “I don’t want to be here any more than you do. Let’s all just go home. I will not tell if you will not.” (Lang 12) But nevertheless he started his lesson. He did overcome himself and it was his greatest challenge.
Of course, later there were some unique series of events for the author. In the second semester at his new job, a chronic illness results in a series of three one-week hospitalizations. Also, during his early years at Assumption, his mother’s illness required frequent trips away, and she subsequently died. (Bayer, 98)
Jim Lang felt uncomfortable in that situation at his first day. But he used all virtues to pass that day. According to Bruce Macfarlane, there are several types of virtues to university teaching. They are as follows: ‘respectfulness, sensitivity, pride, courage, fairness, openness, restraint, and collegiality’ (Macfarlane 128). Jim Lang used all his courage to enter the classroom and to start his lesson. Courage is very important in the life of a teacher, and as Macfarlane writes, “the importance of courage as a virtue is one that respondents valued in a variety of contexts” (134). As it was written above, the teacher needed courage to enter the class, the teacher also should have courage to innovate and try out new ideas in their class (Macfarlane 134).
What keeps the teacher going, sustains the teacher? There are a lot of factors which sustain the teacher. The result is one of them, and maybe the most important. When the teacher sees the result of his work, he is encouraged to do more and to work more productively, it makes him inspired and enthusiastic. Every teacher is happy to give some knowledge to students, and it is a real success when they can reproduce this knowledge back to him.
The other aspect which keeps the teacher going is students’ attitude to the subject. If the teacher knows that it is positive, he also hurries to the class in a good mood. He wants to teach knowing that the information is expected and wanted. For the teacher, it is a real satisfaction to know that he is awaited for at class, that he is going to be met with smiles and benevolent mood.
It is really great when students say “thank you” to the teacher. Most students do not understand how important it is for the teacher to hear, at least sometimes, the words of gratitude. Every teacher makes a great amount of work, which is usually invisible for others. Very often students perceive as a due all the greatest work the teacher has done. The students do not reflect about that volume of love that teacher keeps for every student in particular. And when at least somebody says ‘thank you, teacher’, the teacher is elated. He understands that his work is not spent in vain, that his work was not omitted, and, moreover, it was noticed.
All this is happiness for teacher. The teacher is happy when he sees how his students are changing for the best during his lessons, how his students are getting better, hearing the teacher’s settings. And it is the greatest gift for a teacher to see his students clever and wise. And this, in its turn, is the best confirmation of students’ love and respect that keeps the teacher going, sustains the teacher.
Their biggest problem, if to speak about young teachers, is their uncertainty. They hesitate during the lesson and students feel it. If the teacher is not self-confident, it is difficult for him to calm down the students and to maintain discipline. The unsure teacher can make lots of silly mistakes, can shift and mix everything.
It may be offered several ways of solution or overcoming this problem. First of all, the teacher should be ready to the lesson in a perfect manner. He should know the answers to the extra questions, in order not to be taken unawares. The other way is to think over the lesson in detail. The teacher should ask as many questions to himself as he can, to think over every possible situation and to find several ways out of those situations. And the last piece of advice: when the teacher enters the classroom, he should smile, without showing his/her real feelings on his/her face.
Works Cited
Bayer, Alan E. “Life on the Tenure Track: Lessons from the First Year.” Journal of Higher Education 77.4 (2006).
Lang, James M. Life on the Tenure Track: Lessons from the First Year. JHU Press, 2005.
Macfarlane, Bruce. Teaching with Integrity: The Ethics of Higher Education Practice. London: RoutledgeFalmer, 2004.