The Biggest Challenge Is.....

Unusually, there are no real dramas to speak of this week, unless of course, you include the half term holiday. For some reason children always become a little less focused; a little less able to concentrate, when there is a holiday looming. Perhaps it`s the flurry of arrangements with the street parties (?) or the topics and events at school, related to the Queen`s Jubilee. Whatever it is, the pupils this week have definitely been less attentive and more excitable as the week has progressed. However, there is something else which is decidedly the bigger of the two problems when teaching. From all my teaching of adults and children, I find that the biggest problem to overcome is not a lack of concentration, but a lack of confidence in their own ability at either literacy and/or numeracy. From beginning teaching with someone either one-to-one or in a classroom, one has to gain their trust and respect, but the one thing a teacher has to impart into the psyche of a learner is that they are able to, and can actually do the work. Over many years, I have seen adults display an almost complete mental block in something for the first 4-6 weeks of a class. At some time during these 4-6 weeks they have heard so many times from me that I believe in them, I believe they can do this and they will succeed, that eventually they begin to believe it themselves. Guess what? From the first moment that they believe in themselves, they find the work is okay, they do understand it and they can do it. This is the point at which the learner begins to really learn; `take off`; the snowball effect, if you like. They learn one thing and it doubles; they learn two things and they double etc. etc. Before you know it, they have climbed that mountain and have succeeded. I have also seen the same results with children; children who believe they cannot do maths; don`t understand fractions/decimals/percentages; perhaps don`t understand some words in a piece of writing. After working with them for about a month one-to-one, the same metamorphosis occurs. They suddenly being to learn at a faster rate, because they now believe and know, they can understand, and do the work. This is one of the greatest rewards I know in teaching. It is also one of the reasons why one-to-one teaching succeeds, when the same work has been taught and explained perfectly well by the teacher in school, but to a class of 25-30 children. There isn`t always an opportunity to work one-to-one or for the child to ask questions that they need answering in order to feel really confident with one aspect of the topic. This lack of confidence in one or two parts overshadows the rest of the learning. The child begins to lose a little confidence in their ability. As parents we all know what happens next; a slight lack of confidence in one area then leads to a lowering of confidence in other areas of work - it`s also a snowball. Watching someone blossom and develop from a point of low confidence, to a peak of believing they can achieve something is the single most energising change I have had the pleasure to witness over and over and over again in my teaching work. It is the reason why we want to teach; why we continue to teach and why the rewards in teaching are not for those who are looking solely for financial rewards. As a people-centred profession, if the people (i.e. learners) are not at the centre of your reasons for teaching, then it is the wrong profession for you.