Each and every job, has it’s PRO’s and CON’s.. but what is it that makes teaching one of the most mentally draining careers?

The only time that a teacher will ever say that they love their job, is when they are sitting on the beaches of Hawaii and basking in the sun. This time of the year would be the holidays. The holidays are the time when teachers and students get to live life to its fullest. It is also the time of extreme frustration for parents, when having their kids for the six hours a day is too much.

What is the role of teacher? What do we aim to achieve? The answers to such questions I have pondered many times whilst staring at myself in the mirror at 6am before school. I am pretty sure the job description at a basic level is to ‘educate the future’. But it is never quite that simple. A teacher is a jack of all trades, or as Megan Gale once referred to it “as the ultimate slashie”. She is paying a tribute to the vast variety of job descriptions that she is able to mould into. Teachers are one the same. In any one day we can be a combination of teacher; councillor, parent liaison, disciplinarian, slave driver, curriculum producer and coordinator, detention supervisor, test administrator, social worker, parent, sounding board, media player, entertainer, first aide administrator, friend, cleaner, dictator, advocate, psychologist, stationary supplier, sheriff, personal hygienist, therapist, storage unit, collector of MP3s and phones, fashion consultant, organiser, pin board, trader, negotiator, diplomat, taxi, translator, dictionary, calculator, comedian and the rest.

Teaching is the ability to slip between all roles in a matter of seconds. It is ability that most of us master within the first term of teaching. Once a teacher can stop mid sentence to make a correction to behaviour and return to the sentence with the same tone, you know you have got it down pat. One thing you realise very quickly is what type of children that you don’t want and what names you will not be calling them.

Frustration

Comes from not only dealing with students and their non-supportive parents. Who sometimes believe at some extent that their child having after school detentions will disadvantage themselves, so as a result their kids are not going to be doing it. Isn’t that that point? Parents believe that they are the best teachers around, so why are more students home schooled? Of course not all parents fit into this category. There are many different types of parents, according to the Herald Sun, the latest craze is the Lawnmower parents, “instead of hovering over their children closely monitoring them as helicopter parents are said to, lawnmower parents get out in front of their children to try and clear the way for them”. http://ow.ly/4RRbx 

So what does this mean to us? It means that we are dealing with children who are scared to experience anything in the outside world. Problematic because this generation of children have witnessed more images and information than most of their great grand parents did in their lifetime.

SO where to for education?

Below is a video that explains the shift in education theories and the role of the 21^st century education.

I find the whole thing a little overwhelming. What can I change in my classroom tomorrow?
This is the most confronting and draining part of being an Early Career Teacher. The realisation that you can’t change the world and even if you try to the change one thing. A full shift in educational philosophy will take years, as there is never any time in between classes to get the lockers.

Mango