What do you think students wrote about this teacher?
Find any disadvantages in the scheme from astudent’s perspective.
Find any disadvantage from ateacher’s perspective.
Part 2
I read through some of the reviews at lunch-time, and must admit to a mixture of relief and disappointment at discovering that, apart from mentioning that they had a new “blackie” teacher, very little attention was given to me…
It occurred to me that they probably imagined I would be as transient as my many predecessors, and therefore saw no point in wasting either time or effort in writing about me. But if I had made so little impression on them, it must be my own fault, I decided. It was up to me to find some way to get through to them.
What do you think the teacher willdo next?
Read the next extract.
Part 3
Thereafter I tried very hard to be a successful teacher with my class, but somehow, as day followed day in painful procession, I realized that I was not making the grade. I bought and read books on the psychology of teaching in an effort to discover some way of providing the children with the thought of intellectual challenge to which they would respond, but the suggested methods somehow did not meet my particular need, and just did not work. It was as if I were trying to reach the children through a thick pane of glass, so remote and uninterested they seemed.
Looking back, I realize that in fact I passed through three phases in my relationship with them. The first was the silent treatment, and during that time, for my first few weeks, they would do any task I set them without question or protest, but equally without interest or enthusiasm; and if their interest was not required for the task in front of them would sit and stare at me with the same careful patient attention a birdwatcher devotes to the rare feathered visitor…
I took great pains with the planning of my lessons, using illustrations from the familiar things of their own background… I created various problems within the domestic framework, and tried to encourage their participation, but it was as though there were a conspiracy of indifference, and my attempts at formality fell pitifully flat.
Gradually they moved on to the second and more annoying phase of their campaign, the “noisy” treatment. It is true to say that all of them did not actively join in this but those who did not were obviously in some sympathy with those who did. During a lesson, especially one in which it was necessary for me to read or speak to them, someone would lift the lid of a desk and then let it fall with a loud bang; the culprit would merely sit and look at me with wide innocent eyes as if it were an accident.
They knew as well as I did that there was nothing I could do about it, and I bore it with as much show of aplomb as I could manage. One or two such interruptions during a lesson were usually enough to destroy its planned continuity… So I felt angry and frustrated when they rudely interrupted that which was being done purely for their own benefit.
One morning I was reading to them some simple poetry. Just when I thought I had inveigled them into active interest one of the girls, Monica Page, let the top of the desk fall; the noise seemed to reverberate in every part of my being and I felt a sudden burning anger.
