Teachers have a special role to play in our lives. We all remember instances from our school life where our teacher gave us the perfect life lesson when it was required the most or taught us our favorite subject topic in a way which we remember till date.
As much as teachers are respected and celebrated all across the globe and have always been so in the past as well; I believe they require more accolades in today’s time and age. In this post, being a teacher for many years now, I would like to share the ‘inside story’ and life of teachers around kids all the time.
Have you heard parents badly wanting for their children’s’ long breaks to get over at some point? As much as they want to spend that long break with their children, parents find it difficult to keep their children engaged at all times and get exhausted of all the fun activities and games to play with and things to do with them. Now think of a classroom scenario where there are way more number of children than a set of parents have to deal with! Kids are not on fun break mode and a teacher is trying to make them “LEARN Academic content”. Isn’t this the last thing most kids want to do if given a choice? Still, a teacher has to keep them engaged and entertained as much as possible while they learn some of the important lessons for their lives!
Phew! I already relived the entire experience one more time while writing the above. Having said that, I would like to now share the best part of all of the above experiences. We teachers do what we have to with “ALL OUR HEARTS”. Yes, here I am not just talking for myself but most teachers that I know; they love what they do. They love imparting and sharing the knowledge that they have accumulated over the years in terms of academic knowledge or life experiences and want to give it all to those bunch of kids to make their lives better! So, although they have a tough job at hand, the passion to make children’s’ lives better makes it easy and fun for most of them.
Of all the professions out there, I believe that being a teacher gives a lot of ‘job satisfaction’. I remember telling my family on so many occasions about that great feeling I would have on days when my students tell me how much they enjoyed a particular class of mine and can’t wait to see me again! If someone asks me: what makes you really happy? Well, it is ‘that’ feeling. It literally makes my day 😊.
Although teachers get their due respect from not just students but also their parents and the organization they work for; I feel they can be rewarded better, especially in current times of COVID-19 pandemic. This is a time when education system and teachers are working very hard to put together the pieces to make virtual education a success. There are many teachers who are not well-versed technology-wise or are not good at using computers in general. They are giving their best to learn new courses today for a successful engaging class each day. Like it was easy to keep the students engaged and engrossed in a classroom setup; here comes this virtual class set-up for teachers to keep them engrossed across their computer screens!
Children at home don’t get a feel of a classroom set up where they are around teachers and their classmates. To create that vibe of classroom across the screen is a task for teachers today. Not many teachers even today are prepared for this new arrangement. They are trying to cope with the technology needs of the virtual classroom set up while imparting the best of content. It is difficult for teachers to attend and become experts at different tools of the technology related to virtual learning as many schools across the globe are ready to reopen while the others have already started their classes.
Conducting exams and assessing students is another challenge at hand in this virtual set up. Are the students missing on the fun cut & paste and lab activities that are very important for any school year? Are they missing learning and playing their favorite sport on the school playgrounds? Are they missing the fun lunch breaks with their friends? Yes, they definitely are. Attending school is a holistic experience which is not just confined to learning math, science, languages etc., alone. Even though students might be missing on this holistic experience, teachers today are trying really hard to ensure every child of every household across the globe gets the best of education in whatever set-up available and they are trying very hard to keep the classes engaging and fun. Hence, teachers should be celebrated more than ever in current times!
It is the collaborated efforts of the educational institutes, parents, teachers and students that is making this new journey successful. Teachers are requiring additional support from parents and their organizations to execute their subject matter to the students in the best possible way. Parents and school authorities will have to keep cooperating more than before with the teachers to make this new phase a success. Because, a teacher alone cannot make this happen!
There are several platforms like teacherspayteachers.com that come to rescue of teachers at these times. Several ready-made resources in the form worksheets, stations, activities, task cards and much more is available for teachers to use. While teachers will need time to get used to the virtual classroom set-up; they will have less time to sit and prepare all the necessary resources for their students. Such platforms will be of great help at these times. Being an experienced science teacher for more than twelve years now, I have set up a store on teacherspayteachers.com to help science teachers with helpful and fun resources like stations, activities and task cards etc. which can be useful for virtual / digital set up as well. Visit my store: https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Store/The-Science-Arena