Purple Tod Consulting

The voice of our novice teachers (1)!

These newsletters are dedicated to the voices of novice teachers seeking professional identity. In a recent research Derwin Daniels (2015) interviewed novice teachers. His research is part of an academic accomplishment towards a formal postgraduate degree. Let’s listen to what novice teachers had to say.

• “Can’t stick to your time, you can’t give your all onto teaching, there’s admin things.” “I love the teaching, I don’t enjoy the admin.”
• “I expected to teach but it’s like we not actually teaching, you almost never teach, all you do is preparing these poor children to be able to pass the assessments, not empowering them.”
• “When I was a student, my mind-set was the teacher is there to educate but in practice it’s not just about educating. Because you dealing with people, you’re dealing with many different dynamics. In a class of 36, that’s 36 individuals with their own thinking that you need to negotiate just so that you can get to the point of teaching.”
• “My biggest problem was classroom management.” “I think it’s a bit naïve of me to think the children want to learn, some of them don’t, they don’t want to put in the effort.”
• “Last year I had a good year, this year I’m faced with a whole different story. I didn’t know I would get a different type of child, it’s not what I expected it to be.”
• “Unexpected, I think is the behaviour of the children, they can push you and you have to hold yourself back. You have to put your beliefs and anger one side, keep your composure, that’s a struggle you have to endure every day.”
• “Teaching is an over-time job, I have to find the balance between my family and the teaching.”
• “You have to lead by example, I did not know that whatever I do will be imitated by children in my class.” “I found I need to change the way I do things, change the way I walk, change the way I address people.”
• “It’s not that it’s there but it’s like they bring it out of you because of their behaviour.” “It takes a lot out of you.”
• “Parents tend to be difficult, parent’s involvement is not up to scratch, we deal with a different breed of parents.”
• “You can’t blame them, shame, some of them come home late.”