Student practice: Attitude towards pupils

 

Student practice: Attitude towards pupils

I think as a student teacher, it is important to reflect and establish an attitude towards learners. These five months of teaching practice had been very different from what I've been used to. A major difference was spending the whole day with the same group of students. This was strange at first as in my previous jobs and teaching practices, I would spent maximum an hour with a given group with in specific grade. Before, it was challenging to really get to know 20+  learners in six different classes. Whereas, with the same class I was able to get to know the students more at a deeper level and know their personalists, characters, interests, strengths and weakness and learning styles. I will say it that it made lesson planning a lot easier to  as I knew the class well, but it came with a lot of challenges.  

My attitude towards learners was very similar to those of the past. I always try to be open-minded, see and treat each student equally and not to be too strict. This was due to my openness towards all learners and spending time to get to know each and every student. I try to express my willingness to get to know all of my students as creating that trust for one another. As I got to know my students better, they were more comfortable around me so, we were able to co-operate and work with each other (thus facilitate learning). I try to put myself in my students shoes to understand their difficulties and more importantly their strengths.

During this time, I tried to be sensitive to students' diversity and differences between them. It is inevitable that students are totally different and unique from one another. As they differ in their interests, attitudes, learning and cognitive styles, learning strategies , prior knowledge, motivation and nature. It was super important for me to take those into consideration and be flexible when dealing with students. It was as a challenge to provide motivation and meaningful learning experiences for all children. Especially providing them with a super stimulating and enthusiastic activity to boost their creatively and knowledge. As a teacher, I always strive to include everyone and include students different abilities in the lesson. I always try to spice things up in the classroom and complete hands-on activities which I think had a quite good  response. 

I did face a number of challenges, for instance after some time, frankly speaking of course, students start to annoy you. There was a number of students who would ask questions that was not related to the lesson at all. Learners start talking over you even though they made the rule to respect one another and listen to someone when they are talking. Or, even, the teacher has to remind a particular student or group of students to put their face masks on although, we have been wearing them for the past five months. Some things start getting on your nerves, and this could have had affected the class in a negative way. It almost got the better of me, but then I had to some self-reflection, simples changes in the classroom and had a nice tall glass of wine. As I remembered that these students are nine years-old and they are probably going through a rough patch in their lives. By a means of self-reflection, I was able to generally pinpoint the problem and re-change my attitude towards my class. 

I can conclude that the teacher's attitude towards students is a crucial aspect as it affects so many things. For example, the student's learning experience, impair academic achievement, increase students' psychological disorders, higher levels of stress and a negative (even fearful) learning environment. Which I never want as a teacher for my students. 

This year, I did face a slight hiccup in my attitude towards students, but by means of self-reflection, and having a strong support system as by talking with other teacher and learning about their experience. It helped me regain my positive attitude towards students and the students did the same for me. 

Please share with your experience and hard time towards students in the comments section below ! 

Sara