Tag Archives: teaching
The concept of a teacher “shortage” seems to flowing through the mainstream media at the moment. The only thing is that there is no teacher shortage and never has been. There are at any point in time plenty of teachers floating around and an ample number of teaching graduates entering the realms of education.However, a greater number of these people either do not want enter teaching or even stay in teaching.The big question then is….why? Why would someone not want…..
As a teacher it has always intrigued me on how much emphasis our society places on academic achievement for one to be “successful” in learning and in life. As a preschool teacher for many years, I “graded” my students on how well they interacted with others in a variety of social situations as opposed to how well they displayed their general intellect for facts and figures. I always felt my students were “successful” when they had mastered these simple yet…..
As a teacher I’ve had a very unique view of the world throughout the covid pandemic. By seeing things through the eyes of our children. This has made me realise what the real pandemic in our society is. It certainly isn’t a communicable disease but rather a condition which costs us much more in time, money and resources than we could ever imagine.Forget about the “covid” pandemic. This is the “lack of confidence” pandemic. This pandemic has been around long…..
The notion of the “inner child” became very popular back in the 1990’s where individuals would look within and try discover or at least re-discover who they really were. Part of this was a healing process for a wounded self left behind from childhood when one grows up and becomes an adult. This could also include a process of forgiveness for oneself and also forgiveness for one’s parents for any indiscretions that occurred during their childhood. It became a bit…..
One the biggest challenges that I have faced as a teacher is working within the educational system. As a teacher I was aware that my role was very important to my students yet in the bigger scheme of things I was a small fish in a very big pond. This being that my opinion on all things teaching was not highly regarded by the hierarchy above me. And not that they didn’t care for my opinion but rather that as…..
It’s interesting how education as I see it has really lost it’s ability to allow children to play. I began my teaching life as a preschool teacher in a day care centre. I followed a play based program and it added a huge amount of educational value to the lives of the children that I taught there. Then I moved into a primary (elementary) school based preschool. Again it was a play based program and again the children that were…..
Teaching young children I feel is one of the most difficult aspects of being a teacher. When I first completed my early childhood teaching degree I went almost by default into the day care ranks as a supply (relief) preschool teacher. This being that this was the only place that seemed to provide any immediate teaching jobs especially for early childhood graduates. But once I got there I soon realised why. And as much as I did enjoy the many…..
Being a male teacher especially in early childhood education has brought me some interesting challenges in my teaching journey. I must firstly state that I never really felt that I was trying to be a male influence in a predominately female dominated industry like early childhood education. I also wasn’t trying to take the lead in any “Men’s Movement” or anything like that. As much as back in the 1990’s when the “Sensitive New Age Guy (SNAG)” thing took off,…..
I first thought about becoming an early childhood teacher almost exactly 30 years ago. My first inspiration came from my honorary aunt Terri who was my preschool/kindergarten teacher back in the mid-1970s. As she watched me grow over the years she began to tell me how I had a gift with young children and should think about becoming an early childhood teacher. At first, I thought this was a bit weird as I thought men did not do this for…..