10 Universal Truths About Teaching

Teaching! Some say it is the second oldest profession – and it is true that it is almost as respected as the first. Below we disclose to you – whether you are an educator or not – the truths about teaching that every educator discovers at some point or another. Ladies and gentlemen, we present..

Disaster will occur whenever visitors are in the room. This is a given truth for any teacher, new or old. Your colleagues come along to see your best teaching practice and it is that day when young Johnny decides to throw a tantrum (his mum is on the Board of Governor’s – what can you do?). Or the class splits in to two and decides to do their very best impression of the Jets and the Sharks, twenty first century style and with real weapons, just as your line manager walks in. Or that science experiment you are sure will impress your visitors blows up in your face and rips off three of your fingers. It could also be that it is the week your whole institution is being inspected and you reckon that the Inspectors won’t bother you first thing on the very first day – least of all because your class is tucked away at the far end of the building and it takes ages to get there. Oh no, my dear! Yours is the very first class they will decide to inspect! When visitors are around, always assume that they will knock on your class room door first.

A subject interesting to the teacher will bore students. Silly. To death. Getting anything out of them will be like retrieving a needle from a supermassive black hole. A teacher can spend a weekend, a month, a year preparing for that ultimate class. One of the universal truths of teaching is that these classes are most likely to bore the students in to a state of catatonia from which not even a horse-bucket sized bag of E numbers can revive them. If it means nothing to them, if they cannot relate it to their lives of their experiences then it will fall flat. Get to know your students as well as you can without breaking any laws and adapt and evolve your teaching to suit them, not yourself!

Some of the best lesson plans – and therefore lessons – are scribbled down on the back of a cigarette packet during one of those sneaky breaks you are not supposed to take – and five minutes before you are suppose to teach it.

The time that a teacher takes to explain something is always inversely proportional to the information that will be retained by the students. We like the sounds of our own voices – otherwise we wouldn’t become teachers. That’s why so many who despair of the profession go in to acting. Repeating something three times in a row (a.k.a the Tony Blair School of getting things to sink in!) doesn’t work with those who you are attempting to educate. Explain it once and then get them to do it. Then explain it again in terms of what they have just done you. Going on and on and on will only bore them (see number nine) and give you a sore throat.

It is a truth universally acknowledged by teachers that when your students do better, it is the students who are credited with working harder. Of course, if your results are poor, it is the teacher who gets the blame! To paraphrase the youth of today, this may suck – and indeed it does. However, it is only the bad worker who blames his own tools and to blame one’s students for their poor results is the next best thing to this. Do not always expect too much praise when things go right either. Both your institution and your students will expect precisely this and educators can feel more than a little deflated when the results come in – even when they are fantastic! At the end of the day it’s your job – go work in the city if you want a bonus!

Oh and don’t expect presents from students when they do really well in their exams. Your day is over, old timer; move over for the next generation! Oh, and if you do get a present, their mother will have bought it.

The real truth here is that the length of a meeting will always be directly proportional to the boredom the person who has called the meeting produces.

So, you went in to teaching to teach did you? Your poor deluded thing! They didn’t tell you about the meetings when you were training, did they? You know, the meetings that take place before, during and after the working day? The meetings where others teachers you don’t know talk about students you have never heard about – interminably, without pausing for breath or comment. The meetings where you are being trained “in service” and the trainer thinks that photocopying a few pages from “Teaching Today” then sticking them up on the smart board as a PowerPoint presentation is training. The meetings where Senior Management pretend they are business people and tell you about the dark financial clouds ahead. The meetings where Miss Smith who has been in the profession forty years waxes lyrical about the good old days when students knew how to behave and had respect for their elders and betters. They just go on, and on – and on.

Choose well and occasionally have dental appointments, ill children or radiator leaks at home so you can duck out every now and again. Do not miss too many as to attract suspicion but when you successfully dodge one, do something just as useful with the time, like go to a bar.

There are two truths to remember here that will always happen. Firstly, when you take on a new student they invariably come from a place that did not teach anything. Secondly, that good students move away. Usually to Canada. It’s always the ones that you pray will leave who stay forever. Then, just as soon as you are able – to your satisfaction – to describe them as remotely civilized and “classroom ready” they move up a year to a new set of teachers. These teachers then ask you why you ranted on about little Billy so much because he is such a lovely kid to have in the class.

Take an aspirin and consider that although food prices may be rising booze seems to getting inexorably cheaper.

Time will always run more quickly during your free time. The worst thing in teaching is invigilating exams, where time almost comes to a standstill. It goes so slowly that when you look at the students doing the exam it seems as if they are writing in slow motion. Often you realize that, yes, they actually are writing in slow motion, the little devils (see number 7 – reward) and your heart sinks. Then you feel like crying.

This aside, it is the teacher’s free time where the laws of physics seem to go truly haywire. This is where time speeds up to such an extent that if you are lucky enough to get an hour for your lunch, it seems more like five minutes and the bagel you promised yourself you would savor and enjoy goes half eaten as you dash to your next class. A solution here is proffered – physically leave the institution when you have a break. Time returns, miraculously, to normal.

Although the backlash has begun, there is still a certain linguistic political correctness that the new teacher must follow in order to get on. So, when you are speaking to your institution’s psychologist (if you are lucky or unlucky enough to have one, whatever your point of view is) there are a few rules to follow. Do not refer to the student as a “weirdo” – it simply won’t do in this day and age. The correct term is “emotionally disturbed”. Do not refer to a student as a “retard” – what you really mean to say is “educationally challenged”. Someone you may describe in the daylight as a “mouthy little git” should be referred to as “excessively loquacious in the learning environment”. Finally, remember if the sweet little chap or chapette indicates an immediate attack on your person they are not guilty of “abusive and threatening behavior” but are “socially maladjusted”. Bless.

You have taught a subject – and you think you have done it well! One of the ways to measure the success of teaching and learning is to give the little angels a test. Here comes another truth about teaching. On a Monday with no test, if you have twenty students you may well achieve the magic one hundred percent attendance. All twenty will be there, attentive, punctual and brimming with health.

Tell them that they have a test the next day and you will be lucky to get seventeen. At least three will suddenly go down with bubonic plague, typhoid or cholera. Take heart – at least you will be able to take some satisfaction in the fact that they have digested their “plagues of the world” class of the previous semester. Do not despair – take number six in to account and be pragmatic. Console yourself with the fact that they cannot escape you forever, cackle maniacally and proceed with the day’s activities.

This list is not exhaustive! Every teacher will have their own experiences. Please use the comment box below to add your own suggestion for inclusion. Keep it clean, folks!