Teacher Reflections

Some more thoughts..

I was thinking again about "What does it mean for me to be a teacher", and I started thinking about what do I think is the most important things for me to do when I teach.
I was talking to my co-operating teacher from prac about what she sees to be the most important thing when teaching, she said "boosting children's self esteem". So I've started to think ... how important is this?

Well, some of you may know that I teach flute to a number of primary school (and two high school) students. I have noticed during lessons that a few of my students seem to demote their playing all the time. For example I might ask them to play something and they'll look really downcast and say they can't. It made me think the following questions:
- do these students have low confidence in themselves?
- are they like this in everything?
- do people always put them down?

I was thinking that as a teacher it is really important for children to gain self esteem. So what if they aren't the best at something! Who cares if Bb harmonic minor isn't perfect one week (sorry for the music analogy)! And so I've started thinking about how can I encourage children to have confidence in their abilities? I'd be interested in your thoughts (that is if anyone reads this) - either on how can you help children gain confidence while still maintaining a balance of seeing them improve, or whether something else is significant in teaching. I think it is also important to make sure that teaching methods are varied so that the kids have a chance to learn in different ways.

I think that with self esteem that kids these days are really prone to being put down and are constantly fighting a battle with themselves to do better. The saying "we are our own judge", meaning that we judge ourselves the hardest is true - so do we as teachers really need to be down on kids who don't do their best all the time - or perhaps if we are we should make sure that we know why first.

So I guess in closing I can say that I do agree with my co-operating teacher in that it's really important to help kids value themselves particularly for later in life when they will need confidence in themselves to get through.

I thought I might leave you with a thought from Mr Holland's Opus. I was watching it yesterday and there is a young girl (Miss Lang) who learns the clarinet. She isn't very good and gets very upset because everyone else in her family excels in something except her. It is only when Mr Holland appeals to her own situation and helps her gain a love for learning that she actually progresses. I just thought that was cool. Sometimes kids don't seem to progress and perhaps it's our methods of teaching.


Jen.

posted by Jenfafa @ 5:36 PM