Its been a while since I've written you something. Since we last saw each other, I received a Bachelor's in Education as a Second Degree and successfully completed all my paperwork and I am now a fully qualified and accredited teacher. I am currently in the process of looking for a teaching job and I am completing all the necessary papers to get my name on TOC lists at a local school district.
Over the summer I volunteered at my parish's Summer Camp and looked at want ads for ESL Teachers and after a few unsuccessful interviews, I was hired by a local tutoring company. I was excited for the teaching opportunity to shape some minds and make a positive impact on students. I hoped this would give me more hands-on experience in working with children in an educational setting; after all, tutoring is very similar to teaching and I could imagine this was what my PDP friends were experiencing in their own classrooms. As I worked with them and I had a revelation:
Over the summer I volunteered at my parish's Summer Camp and looked at want ads for ESL Teachers and after a few unsuccessful interviews, I was hired by a local tutoring company. I was excited for the teaching opportunity to shape some minds and make a positive impact on students. I hoped this would give me more hands-on experience in working with children in an educational setting; after all, tutoring is very similar to teaching and I could imagine this was what my PDP friends were experiencing in their own classrooms. As I worked with them and I had a revelation:
I was not meant to do this.
Dear reader, before you panic and begin to doubt me, please hear me out for a moment. I was not meant to be working in that local tutoring company. I felt very confined. I was instructed not to use any other materials except what they gave me, I wasn't allowed to bring my own lesson plan to give the students' a chance at better understanding their material. The classroom, if you could call it that, was a small room with no window and had a door that must be kept closed during my work hour with the students.I was supposed to memorize their teaching procedure which involved gathering the students' work, marking them and giving it back to them so they could start new work. This was supposed to go on for the whole time the student booked with me.
This isn't the teaching I signed up for. Where is the interaction with the students? The only student-teacher interaction I found was when I passed their work back to them and got new work to mark. The opportunity to have teachable moments and exercise creativity has been stifled, even chopped off from me. This isn't the teaching I signed up for, this is not the environment that fosters learning and allows children to laugh, learn and smile; that teaching is not me.
I don't want to say that I'm better than tutoring. No, tutoring is important; it supplements the material being taught and it provides an opportunity for the student to gain a better understanding of the material. In fact, on of my teacher colleagues recommended me to tutor a little girl with her reading skills. She can be challenging at times, but she's made some progress and I am happy to see her attempt to read her words and simple sentences.
So what is the difference between the tutoring company and this tutoring this little girl? I am still thinking about it. When I tutor the little girl, I know I am not confined to one set of materials, I can search up different resources and ask other people for help. I can easily change my strategy when my student is having a bad day; I cannot do this in the former because I am meant to follow the teaching procedure and can only re-direct the student's focus back on the work they were doing.
As a new teacher, I need to be able to exercise that creativity and I need to have that pedagogical interaction. I want to be able to veer off my lesson plan and throw it out the window when it is not working. I want to see my students learn through their actions and understanding, not by what kinds of marks they get from a computer test. I want to be able to collaborate with other teachers, not with the singular, omniscient director. This is the teaching I signed up for and that is the teacher I still want to become.
This isn't the teaching I signed up for. Where is the interaction with the students? The only student-teacher interaction I found was when I passed their work back to them and got new work to mark. The opportunity to have teachable moments and exercise creativity has been stifled, even chopped off from me. This isn't the teaching I signed up for, this is not the environment that fosters learning and allows children to laugh, learn and smile; that teaching is not me.
I don't want to say that I'm better than tutoring. No, tutoring is important; it supplements the material being taught and it provides an opportunity for the student to gain a better understanding of the material. In fact, on of my teacher colleagues recommended me to tutor a little girl with her reading skills. She can be challenging at times, but she's made some progress and I am happy to see her attempt to read her words and simple sentences.
So what is the difference between the tutoring company and this tutoring this little girl? I am still thinking about it. When I tutor the little girl, I know I am not confined to one set of materials, I can search up different resources and ask other people for help. I can easily change my strategy when my student is having a bad day; I cannot do this in the former because I am meant to follow the teaching procedure and can only re-direct the student's focus back on the work they were doing.
As a new teacher, I need to be able to exercise that creativity and I need to have that pedagogical interaction. I want to be able to veer off my lesson plan and throw it out the window when it is not working. I want to see my students learn through their actions and understanding, not by what kinds of marks they get from a computer test. I want to be able to collaborate with other teachers, not with the singular, omniscient director. This is the teaching I signed up for and that is the teacher I still want to become.