ROles and status are terms related to societies that can also be examined from the classroom perspective. This post will look at roles and status and how they influence the classroom learning environment.

Roles

Roles are behavior patterns that are associated with a person’s status. In the classroom, the most common roles are teacher and student. However, this is an overgeneralize as the roles of an individual could be nuanced and complicated by various factors. In addition, a student and or the teacher’s role in the classroom can be influenced by their roles outside the classroom, as we will see.

Status is a term related to a role and is the benefits and burdens of a person’s role. For example, there are advantages to being a teacher in the classroom. One is the leadership position in which the teacher tells students what to do instead of being told what to do. However, there are also burdens such as discipline problems, dealing with difficult parents, and low pay. There are also pros and cons to being a student. Students have much less responsibility compared to teachers but are also under constant surveillance and control by adults.

Being a teacher is an example of an achieved status or a form of status that a person works for. Other examples of achieved status are entrepreneurs, actors, athletes, pilots, etc. Ascribed status, on the other hand, is a status that a person does not choose. Generally, many K-12 students have this status ascribed to them by their parents and the government, and many would prefer not to be a student.

Teachers and students often have multiple roles, which is called a role set. A teacher could be a parent, spouse, family member, friend, leader, a musician in addition to their teaching role. A student can also have multiple roles such as child, sibling, athlete, worker, to name a few.

If a person has to perform too much under their role, it can lead to role strain. For example, teaching is often demanding enough for many individuals. If the job becomes too burdensome, burnout can take place. The same is true for students who are struggling with academics.

If two or more roles lead to conflict, this is an example of role conflict. For example, suppose a teacher is having problems in their role as a parent. In that case, it can carry over and affect their performance in the classroom. The same can also be said of a student whose role as a child can bring problems into the classroom.

All of the ideas mentioned here have ignored the classroom to a large extent. Students can have different roles within the classroom. Some are more of the leader type, others are the class clowns, while many are simply followers. Teachers can also have varying roles based in part on their teaching style. Some teachers are more controlling, while others are more hands-off. Status can also play a role. An older respected teacher has a different role in their classroom than an untested young teacher.

Conclusion

Roles and status are things people acquire and seek throughout their lives. Sometimes this is good, but not always. Students and teachers need to be aware of their roles so that they can understand when things may not be working well in the classroom.

A google search will show you that the average person makes 35,000 decisions a day. This seems like a large amount, but teachers make 1,500 educational decisions a day. Making such a vast number of decisions can lead to fatigue, among other problems. A greater danger may be making poor decisions. Here we will look at some common barriers to decision making.

Sunk Cost

Sunk cost happens after a decision is made. What has happened is there are signs that a decision is terrible, but the leadership sticks to the decision because of the investment that has already been made. It is common for teachers and administrators to invest in products and services that later turn out to be inferior. However, because a commitment has been made and resources spent, there is a hope that staying the course will allow for an improvement in the situation.

To avoid this trap, administrators must realize that not all decisions are good ones. This means that when an idea is not working, the administrators or teachers who made the wrong choice to own the mistake shrink the mistake’s cost. Ignoring this to look like you’re in control and know what you are doing can be highly damaging to an institution.

Uncertainty

Decision-making should be as informed as possible. However, we never have access to all knowledge. This implies that there is always a measure of risk. Due to the uncertainty, leadership generally will choose the most conservative option available to minimize risk. This is wise at times but can leave tremendous opportunities on the table.

An idea related to uncertainty is a concept called bounded rationality. Bounded rationality states that people who face complex or uncertain situations often cannot make entirely rational decisions. In other words, when facing uncertainty, people’s decision-making can become uncertain or unpredictable. This commonly happens in novel situations in which it is unclear what to do. In such cases, people are limited in how much they can process and thus utilize their intuition to overcome.

Conflict

People generally want to avoid conflict. This is particularly true when decision-making involves conflict. Despite this, there are times when conflict is the best decision, such as when a student will not obey a teacher. If the teacher avoids the conflict, it sends a message to other students to duplicate the disobedient child’s behavior, which will lead to more significant problems and harsher conflict in the future.

There are at least two ways to think of conflict, and the difference is in terms of what people focus on during the disagreement. Process conflict is focused on improving how to do something and can lead to improved performance. Relationship conflict is a conflict between people that can often gt highly personal and should be avoided. The challenge is that people confuse process and relationship conflict. For example, a student is disrupting the class, the teachers reprimand this, and the student takes it personally.

As a teacher or administrator, it is crucial to keep conflict focus on process and behavior and not on people. When people become the problem, relationship conflict is sure to follow.

Conclusion

Decision-making is a crucial component of everyone’s life. Every day we are all called to make many different decisions. The implications of our choices could be tremendous. Therefore, that is why it is essential to be aware of common roadblocks to making sound decisions.

There are challenges and issues in teaching any subject. Math is no exception to the challenge of teaching. In this post, we will look at a brief history of math teaching in the United States and how math is taught in many parts of America today.

Brief History of Math Teaching

Talk to most students, and they while share how it is difficult to learn math. One of the biggest challenges may be how abstract it is. When studying math it is often more of a mixture of drilling with an  expectation to solve problems that have no context or relevancy for the student. For example, solving 2x + 4 = 10 lacks a connection for many students.
Prior to the 1960s mathematics was taught in the United States with an emphasis on computation. Calculate over and over until you get was one of the main philosophies of this approach. During the 1960s, there was a change to an approach called “new math” which focused on the structure or the components/theories of mathematics. This made math even more abstract. In addition, at least with the focus on computation a student could memorize the steps to complete problems, with the “new math” approach the focus on theories without heavy computational practice made learning difficult.

Teaching Math Today

Today, whether to focus on computation or structure depends more on the level of math the students are studying. College bound students are still exposed more to structure while those who are not are often taught using more of a computational focus. The challenge  with this is that everyone wants every child to be  college bound which means essentially that most students are taught with a focus on the structure and theories of mathematics with a goal of understanding why certain steps are taken when calculating something.

Generally, it is common for math  teachers at the high school level and above to focus on teaching conceptual understanding first before procedural steps (elementary is usually hands-on). In other words, explaining theory and the why of the steps before actually using the steps to solve problems. This can sometimes lead to the teaching of long complicated mathematical proofs for various concepts such as the quadratic formula. For a math expert, proofs are critical to knowing why a certain approach works, however, for the average person, proofs can be incredible confusing because they involve math that the learner is not total comfortable with in many situations with little practical application.

The downside of learning procedural steps first is that it becomes difficult to apply them in different situations or to transfer the knowledge to new contexts. For example, in my own experience, it was common for a math teacher to teach the steps of how to solve a problem but then when it was time to practice, the problems were always slightly different from what the teacher taught. I would need to square something that the teacher did not square or factor something that the teacher did not factor in order to have success. The focus  on the steps made it impossible to bring in other tools or handle situations that called for other steps.

For the math teacher, who was a natural expert, seeing a problem and bringing in other tools and adding and taking away steps was easy because of their understanding of theory. However, for the rest of us, there is a need to drill and become comfortable before expanding the use of the concepts to unknown situations.

Conclusion

The goal is not to indicate that there is one particular way of teaching math. The challenge is really how to help non-math students have success at math. This involves using both concepts and drill in a combination that allows weaker students to survive or even succeed in a difficult academic situation for them.

Often, it is expected that new teachers have a reason for wanting to teach. In this post,  we will look at several common reasons why people choose the occupation of teaching.

Money

This is probably a reason for not teaching. Teachers normally make enough money but not much more than that. Generally, there is an increase over time but it is often difficult to get ahead financially in the teaching profession. However, if you take the skills you develop as a teacher (communication, planning, leadership, etc.) you can pivot these skills into side jobs or other career fields.  Many famous writers and musicians were at one time teachers (JK Rowling, Stephen King, Gene Simmons, Sting).

Towards the end of one’s career the salary can be lucrative. This often takes 20 plus years in many countries and requires additional professional development in order to continue to progress of the step salary. If continuing to study appeals to you than teaching might be the right choice as a career.

Prestige

Despite the apparent association with how poor the educational system, is teaching is still considered a highly respective occupation. Often, people speak highly of teaching in general but often have sharp criticism of the teachers of their own children or even of the teachers they experienced as a student.

The amount of prestige varies depending on the discipline and level of teaching. Often science and math are more prestigious than the humanities due in part to the higher expect salary of science and math majors. Teaching at the university level is often considered more prestigious than teaching K-12 due in part to the higher level of education required and the assumption of greater talent that is necessary to teach at the tertiary level.

In many ways, the respect given to teachers is almost tongue in cheek. People are suppose to say that teaching is important and respectable even if they rarely appreciated the hard work of their own children’s teachers or the teachers they studied under.

Authority

Teaching comes with a large amount of power and authority over students. The students  spend several hours a week with you as you play a critical role in shaping their character. This can be good or bad depending on the type of teacher. There is also a great deal of academic authority over students. As a teacher, it is not hard to find ways to fail hardworking students are to pass lazy ones. The difference is in the integrity of the teacher and how they use this authority.

Schedule

Teaching still allows for a better work life balance when compared to other professions. This in part due to the holidays and built in vacations. However, during a given week in a semester a teacher is putting in about 50 hours a week in the US which is comparable to other occupations in America.

This means that once Christmas, Easter, and holidays are removed from the equation teachers a worker just as hard in terms of hours given to their job as others. However, there are additional burdens on teachers with meetings, clubs, field trips, and other extra-curricular activities at the school. Someone has to watch the kids during recess, lunch, etc and this is in addition to the teaching load of the teacher.

Students & Colleagues

Many people become teachers for the chance to interact with students and colleagues. For students, it is a chance to help them to develop and grow intellectual and socially as well as a chance to spark interest in learning in general. This opportunity to have an impact on the lives of young people is a primary motivation for entering the teaching field.

There are downsides to working with students as there are times when behavior becomes an issue. Nothing is more draining to a teacher than dealing with a group of students who do not want to learn. Navigating this disinterested in education can be discouraging to say the least.

For the colleagues, it is a chance to wok within what is usually a non-competitive environment. Unlike other industries where there is a best salesman or best manager, in teaching every teacher can be a great teacher because there is normally no ranking. However, with the pressures of standardized testing teaching has become more competitive.

Conclusion

Everyone must determine for themselves what is their motivation for becoming a teacher. This is really a personal decision and there is rarely a way to state conclusively that someone’s motivation to teach is wrong. The examples provided here are for giving reasons to think about why someone may want to teach.

A career in teaching is an attractive option for many young adults. One of the major challenges in a career in teaching is the student teaching experience that is normally placed at the end of the degree program. This post will provide some suggestion for teacher mentors

Go Over Local Expectations

Every school has its own set of policies and expectations that all employees need to adhere too. Often, the student teacher is not aware of these and it is the mentoring teacher’s responsibility to provide some idea of what is expected. This includes such things as showing them around the campus, communicating expectations for how to dress, discipline procedures, and even how to deal with grades.

Knowing these little things can allow the new teacher to focus on teaching rather than the administrative aspects of the classroom.

Provide Feedback

Feedback is critical so that the new teacher knows what they are doing well and wrong. It is, of course, important to mention what the student teacher does well. However, growth happens by providing support to overcome weaknesses.

The temptation for many supervising teachers is simply to mention what the problems are and let the student figure out what to do. This approach may work for an experience or a highly independent teacher. However, for most new teachers they need specific support on what to do in order to improve their teaching and overcome a weakness.

Therefore, criticism without some sort of suggestion for how to overcome the problem is not beneficial. In addition, it is important to only address major problems that can cripple the educational experience of the students rather than every single weakness in the students teaching. We all have issues and problems with our teaching and for beginners, only the big problems should be corrected.

The student also should provide feedback on how they view their own teaching. Most teacher education programs require this in the form of a journal. However, the benefit of the journal is only in discussing it with others such as the mentor teacher.

Lead By Example

IN reality, in order for a student to be a successful teacher, they need to see what successful teaching is so they can imitate until perfection. What this means for you as a supervising teacher is that you need to lay the example for the student to imitate. Everyone has there own style but a good example goes a long way in molding the teaching approach of a student.

This also means that a mentor teacher needs to do a lot of verbalizing in terms of what they do. Often, as an experienced teacher, things become automatic in the classroom. You know what to do without much thought or discussion. The problem is that if there is a lack of explanation in terms of wqhat is happening the student teacher is not able to deermine why you are doing certain things. Therefore, a mentor teacher must explained explictiylywhat they are doing and why while they are provding the exmple of teaching.

Conclusion

Students who dream of teaching need support in order to have success. This involves bringing in people with more experience to support these young teachers as they develop their skillset. This means that even experienced teachers need some support in order to determine how to help new teachers

This post will provide some examples of common problems teachers face. Although the post may seem overwhelmingly negative the purpose here is to provide insight into the actual realities of teaching rather than the romantic experience portrayed in many venues.

Adminstration

Administrators are in charge of the “big picture” of guiding a school towards particular goals that are often laid out by local laws and the results of the prior accreditation visit. This focus on large institutional goals can often cause the administrator to lose sight of the needs of the teachers (unless this was a recommendation from the last accreditation visit),

What results is a task-oriented leadership that is focused on attaining goals or at least showing progress towards goals. This can lead administrators to step on, overwork, and even mistreat teachers. It is hard to blame administrators because if they do not meet specific targets they could lose their own employment.

The constant meetings and incredulous policies that are derived to “help the students” can become exceedingly frustrating for any teacher. Rest assure that few administrators just randomly think up bad ideas. Often the inspiration is from a higher source that is abusing the local administrator.

Co-Workers

There is a surprising amount of petty bickering and fighting among teachers that can become Machevellini in nature. Gossiping backbiting and of course backstabbing all take place. A teacher A confides in teacher B there having problems handling their students and teacher B spreads this to everyone on-campus that teacher A is a terrible teacher who cannot handle her duties.

I’ve heard of teachers complaining that other teachers do not collaborate during lunch with them as though lunchtime is meant to be a meeting that has required attendance. In another setting, I’ve seen teachers slander another teacher in order to help a friend get the job. Petty jealousy can lead teachers to isolate themselves to avoid political attacks which makes it harder to support students.

Parents & Students

Perhaps the biggest problem facing teachers is not necessarily students but parents. If a child is out of line it should only take a simple phone call home to resolve the problem. However, this is almost never the case. Today many parents are indifferent to the behavior of their children. This leaves the teacher only to provide intervention towards a wayward student.

The other extreme is the parent who overly protects and defends everything their child does. This undercuts the teacher’s authority in the same way as a parent who does not provide any sort of behavioral support. The same parents are often quick to get the attention of the administration which is always.

Class Administration

There are a bevy of things that a teacher must do in their own classroom such as

• Class preparation
• Marking assignments
• Decorating
• Meetings
• Communicating with parents/students
• Professional development

This all requires serious time management. It is hard to stay on top of all of these expectations if you are laid back and easy going. It requires strict discipline in order to keep some sort of sanity.

Conclusion

Teaching is tough. However, it is not all bad. There are many rewarding moments in being a teacher. Yet to be successful a teacher must be aware of the common problems that will face so that they are able to weather them.