Mittwoch, 28. Dezember 2011

Do you think there is a 'perfect teacher'?

...was one of the questions I was asked during my admissions interview at the University of Education Vienna and somehow, it’s one that’s stuck in my mind ever since.
There are actually a few reasons for that. 


During the interview, I didn’t expect to get a question like that, so at first I was kind of caught of guard. I needed a little time to gather my thoughts. ‘That’s one of the more interesting questions out there’, I thought to myself. But unfortunately, after only a few sentences into explaining my thought process, the interviewing lady said, ‘it’s okay, that’s all I need’ and we moved on to the next question. Because I didn't really finish explaining myself, it kept wandering my mind ever since.
So I still think this question is kind of fascinating.
Now if there would be a perfect teacher, we could assume two things, from which none seem pleasing to me: either this perfect teacher is teaching in a perfect school, with perfect students; or this perfect teacher is teaching in a ‘regular’ school.

So if there’s a perfect teacher in a ‘regular’ school, just imagine that the lesson plans, the time-management, the exercises and the didactics would be perfect - everything would be perfect.
It’s perfectly planned, and ready to be executed perfectly! A robot-like approach, with precisely coordinated lesson plans, integrating all learning-styles, and using all didactical methods to its perfection.

But the only thing that you’d get are robots. The kids wouldn’t be trained to think on their own and figure stuff out, they’d just do whatever their perfect teacher throws at them.

Now let’s move on to the perfect teacher in the perfect school with perfect kids.

First of all, the teacher would have to put no effort in designing a lesson. The teacher would need no teacher training whatsoever (I mean, of course the perfect teacher wouldn’t need any of this) and would generally need no skills.
But let’s break it down, the kids would want to learn by themselves, they would be no disturbances in class, the kids would love to do all the exercises in the workbooks or on worksheets, they would embrace all kind of new-media-learning-approaches, they would love to do homework, and since they are perfect, the teacher wouldn't even have to correct them, because they would be mistake-free. So the only thing the teacher needs to do, is to start the lesson, and then end the lesson.

Nothing more, nothing less.
All in all, it sounds boring, and I’m sure it would be.

I wouldn't want to be a perfect teacher, and I don’t think there should be one.
I know how my personality works in a classroom, and I like the challenge of trying to find out, how the different personalities of the children work together in the classroom.
I like to work on lesson plans and get creative, while figuring out how to incorporate different things, things that work for the kids. I like to think about new-learning-technologies, and I like to know more about them - how can I use them in the classroom effectively and think about how the kids would like them. I like to think about motivation, getting the kids to be self-aware, self-conscience and to think for themselves.

We all are individuals, every child is different, and as we all know there are different learning styles. All the teachers are trying to deal with every kid individually and personally.
Isn’t that what makes teaching special and interesting.
Every school day is different, every day is a challenge.

While thinking about answering you can reflect for yourself, your teachings and education in general.

In my opinion, this is the greatest question.

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