Class #5

Today in class, we discussed that when teaching, you are expected to teach any subject and grade that is assigned to you. Such as, if I am a math teacher but am asked to do grade 9 science, I will have to. Not to just walk over and through it quickly but to really learn it and in turn teach it thoroughly. Which can be something difficult to do. Grade 9 science is something that is out of my comfort level. If I were to get stuck with it, I would need to do a lot of homework myself to be able to teach the students properly and answer any of their questions. One of my days in the classroom last year I had a teacher who wanted to teach the shop classes but was teaching grade seven health. He talked about how nervous he was at first but he told me that it was much easier than he expected. He said that the two previous teachers of the course emailed him all of their notes, tests, and everything else. Therefore, he was able to pick and choose what they had given him and create his own course around it. I wonder if I will have the same support from past teachers when I get stuck in a class that is outside of my comfort level. We also talked about the fact that there is often a dissonance between the teacher that the teacher wants to become and the teacher that they are becoming. Many factors can lead to this including, the behaviour of students, lack of resources, and lack of support systems within the school. As a professional, despite those constraints, we need to find a way to succeed. However, if there are too many constraints it can lead to teacher burnout. As the teacher and the professional, you are still expected to succeed. I can see the dissonance in my own teaching already. At the beginning of the program, I wanted to teach high school. However, I am now leaning towards teaching middle years. We also talked about how in the past, communities would pay their teachers privately. Therefore, if a community could afford to pay good teachers, they would. Which is obviously very different from how it is today in the STF.