Even after completing four years of professional training, many BTC graduates are confounded when they enter the workforce as teachers. To understand the hardships of teaching, I had a friendly chat with Ms Adel, a fellow trainee at BTC, also teaching in a secondary school for girls in Isa Town.
To begin with, I asked Ms Adel to share some of the challenges that she had never foreseen. Considering she wasn’t an education major, she looked forward to benefiting from training and working with personal guidance from a caring instructor. However, based on the school's need, and to her extreme surprise she was given a senior class. To cope with this obstacle, she decided to attend other teachers’ classes, reflect on her own classes and question students on their learning preferences to plan effective lessons.
Thinking of her hardships during her career as an educator, I asked Ms Adel of any regrets in becoming a teacher and if she would have changed her mind back then, knowing what she knows now. To which she replied that she would not give up teaching for anything in the world. She continued to tell me of how much she loved teaching, associating with her students and how nothing can be compared to how pleasantly graduate students remember and think of her. This answer showed me the joy and fulfilment that Ms Adel felt in her profession; the spark that kept her doing her best in her practice.
Naturally, students’ levels in a class vary. BTC competency 3, Diverse Learners, requires that teachers accommodate each individual to provide opportunities for success. Hence, I wanted to know her methods of dealing with struggling students. She joked: “Relentless badgering," but then rectified it and explained that what greatly motivates students is having fun. She also highlighted the importance of allocating enough time for these students as well as food.
Since teachers also play a great role in fostering relationships with colleagues and parents, I asked if she has ever faced any disagreements in this regard. To this, she expressed her gratefulness to being in a school where disagreements rarely happened. She clarified that parents rarely got angry at their children’s progress reports because they knew their children’s strengths and weaknesses – isn’t that a dream!
Finally, we moved on to discussing the challenges of teaching during the Covid-19 pandemic. Elaborating on the perplexity brought about by the unforeseen situation, she explained how trying to implement activities online and keeping track of each student’s progress can be quite daunting in distant learning.
Based on this interaction, I feel more thankful to BTC for providing the opportunity to study the practice and theory of teaching. As for the future, I pray to be hired in a school as pleasant as the one Ms. Adel described. While Ms. Adel did provide a picturesque description of her school, I know of many other teachers who describe their schools no less than an Armageddon.
A short essay by Marwa Abdulla Jaafar Alsebea, a student @ Bahrain Teachers College
