I’m almost done with a full school year of teaching! The Cambodian school year starts in December, with a break in April, and then learning until the end of September (with break in October). After being a teacher for almost a year, I have truly reflected on what it means to be a teacher. So first before diving into my experience I want to say to everyone: go thank your teachers, professors, mentors, educators, etc. right now about how hard they work to conduct your classes. Teaching is fun, but there is a lot of time, effort, and dedication that goes on to teach a lesson. For my lessons, I can never fly by the seat of my pants to teach because that would end in utter disaster. I am always making lesson plans in preparation for the coming weeks, and although I am a primary school English teacher (who only teaches about 5-8 vocabulary words per class) you have to find activities to fill the time and also hope to help the students remember what you taught. What I want to emphasize in this post is how my appreciation for the teachers and educators has augmented since I started teaching (and I already did appreciate them a lot!)
In teaching, there is a fine balance that is so hard to mitigate. Ideally you want to teach the lesson, have the kids remember the lesson, have an exciting class, everyone does their homework, and maybe you play a game or two. Unfortunately, that is not usually how the class goes. Sometimes I have classes where the kids are not engaged and staring into space, barely participating. Sometimes I have classes where the students cannot stop talking to each other, they eat in class, and maybe I have a kid fall asleep. Sometimes I have classes who do everything I say, but are too shy to speak up and say something independently, but instead they all say the responses in a collective, robotic tone. I found myself in the last example yesterday teaching my 5A class, which resulted in my jumping (yes, literally jumping) to try and get the kids to smile more and have a fun time. Some kids laughed at me, but I much preferred that to the frowns they made before. Although all of these classes have their struggles of either being disengaged, not wanting to care, or being too shy, they all always come to give me high-fives, stickers, etc. after class and I always ask them “where was this energy while I was teaching?!”
I know some of you will say, “well Alex this just sounds like your lessons are boring” but I will tell you that I teach those same lesson plans to some other classes and they go so smoothly, we have fun and my students always put in the work (shoutout 6A who never causes troubles and they have gained the reward of listening to Taylor Swift while I check their homework). All of that is to say, that I have learned that it is the energy that I bring to the table for class to keep the kids afloat and engaged. Imagine that! As a student, if you are having a bad day, it is ok to sit out that day and not participate as much, but if you are a teacher, you always have to give it your all (to be effective and wonderful). (Also please keep in mind this is my opinion). Especially at primary school, if I am having a good day, my positive energy spreads more into the classroom and makes the lessons go better.
Also in being a teacher, there is a sort of confidence I never realized that teachers have. The kids look for me for answers and responses (which makes sense because I am the English teacher). But I have gained a lot of confidence being in front of my students all the time, always in teaching-mode. However, there is always a fear and balance of being a teacher too. You want the lesson engaging, educational, and fun (a tough combo if you have a group of kids disinterested in “super fun English learning time”). I want to be a fun teacher but also a good teacher. That is the most difficult.You can be fun and the students can love you, but what if you are not effective? What if you are an effective teacher but the students are scared of you? That’s what I am trying to say, if you have had some good, fun, and effective teachers, I tell you that they cracked the code on teaching and are truly incredible. This balance sounds like a simple equation, but is very hard to execute.
Yes, kids are kids. They don’t want homework (no one does!), they don’t want exams (I don’t either because then I have to grade them!), and they prefer games over writing sentences. But I really do tell you, teachers work so hard every day in order to make sure students are learning. Like I said, my appreciation for teachers increased (from the already high appreciation) because now I have been in a teacher’s shoes. I hope this post makes sense but truly it is a shoutout to everyone who has been my teacher or mentor!
Me from the classroom! Slightly boring video because we are doing an exercise where you write on a mini chalkboard to practice writing
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