September 26, 2023
How one teaches often feels like a very personal thing. I believe this is primarily due to a lack of structured teacher training across the world. Teachers normally get a year or two of training at the very beginning of their career, mostly in basic classroom management, organisation, and survival. They are then thrown into a classroom with minimal support to work out the craft for themselves over the first few years. This leads to individual teachers crafting a very personal way of functioning and surviving the school day.
Some teachers develop a love for participating directly with students to negotiate learning, while some develop a comfort for having more direct control of the room with strict rules and guidelines to help get them through the day. The vast majority of teachers make these decisions based on gut feeling and personal preference rather than any reading or research into what has been proven as best practice.
Knowing that one’s approach is different to one’s colleagues is a norm and so leads…