The Reality of Teaching: What I've Learned
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- čas přidán 12. 06. 2024
- What teaching is really like, and the main things I've learned in my career. Lets have a chat.
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Career-change PST on the Friday night of my first ever placement here. Thank you so much for your content, Mark. You have done wonders for getting me excited to take the plunge, and I think this might be my favourite video of yours yet. I see myself coming back to this video again as I progress into, and eventually through, this profession. Keep it up! Cheers, Mr Khaledwashere
Hey mate, great vid. Civil engineer changing to be a Maths teacher, halfway through my masters, im 27. Had to leave the industry trying to get closer to a fulfilling job and better work life balance. Gotta be honest, about to start casually teaching whilst finishing uni, pretty anxious about knowing how to deal with classroom management starting off, any basic tips and tricks as a basis to start? Im also quite anxious about not knowing if i lack passion for maths, or if my own mental health is getting in the way. Appreciate any reassurance
Love the video mate and all the thoughts from when you were a young teacher. Very insightful!
Thanks Patrick, glad you got something out of it. I enjoyed taking a walk down memory lane, I found it really helpful to reflect on where I’ve come from to where I am now.
Wish you all the best
Mark, your video helped me feel a bit lighter in knowing that i am not aline im havinf had thw same emotions as a beginning teacher. I am Mary and i am a beginning teacher in NZ. I find your videos validating of my current self as a teacher and thank you for being there as a torch bearer.
Great video
This is something that I aspire to do when I start teaching.. my history teacher is who inspired me to teach, they made me excited to come to school and come prepared for the lessons because they made me passionate about the subject material. I want to share my passion and hopefully inspire some future historians or students to do the same thing!
That’s an amazing reason and purpose, sounds like you’ve got the passion and right attitude wiqz!
Hey Mark, beginner teacher here! I would love to hear about all the topics you mentioned! Thank you for your content!
Hey Ash thanks for the comment, I appreciate it ☺️ Is there anything specific you’d like me to cover?
Sorry Mark, I think you mentioned about communication with parents! Would love to know more advice on that!
I have a few degrees from Canada and UK, and I just recently became an Australian citizen and looking for a career change. Is there a fast-track qualification I can receive in 1 year that will allow me to teach up to year 12 in this country? Or are all educational degrees here 2 years or more?
Been away from teaching for a year now. your experiences are similar to mine though there are a lot of differences in terms of infrastructure and support system. Here you are expected to do everything including paper works that are not related to teaching. I'll try my luck in AU hopefully this year or in 2025.
For context, I am a physics student in the states and I am planning on becoming a teacher. Specifically, math. A list of things I'm afraid of:
Students being so brain rotted from consuming short form content that they can not effectively comprehend a lesson or keep their attention on the material for a good amount of time. Brain rot is a heavy term here but it's how I feel about that kind of content and I choose not to consume it.
The administration of the school limiting what I can teach. Since I want to teach math, I think it would be beneficial to cover some higher level concepts specifically at algebra. I think differentiation and integrals would be great to teach alongside algebra. Maybe this sounds like a bad idea but in the states linear algebra (matrix algebra or matrix math) is taught after you learn calculus. Calculus is after algebra. I just think simple differentiation would build a solid base for later. Maybe there's an assignment with only polynomial equations and no fancy exponential or log stuff going on. Differentiate the quadratic. I think that would be a good enough coverage of that.
I would like to give problems from physics in algebra because it gives something for a student to grasp. Math alone doesn't click for some people. It certainly didn't for me until i started taking chemistry and physics. Very basic equations from kinematics would do. Specifically the quadratics for calculating position of a projectile.
This is more trigonometry so it wouldn't really be taught within the realm of algebra, at least in my experience with my specific state. I would like to teach more intuitively what the unit circle is. This would be a brief aside. Obviously, children are not going to be learning multivariate calculus but they can at least learn conceptually what the unit circle means and what sine and cosine mean. They can learn that there are coordinate systems beyond x and y and z. I think just having this knowledge that "ok, we can take the perspective of the axis, or we can take the perspective of the line on the graph", is a good way to get a better understanding of the unit circle and what sine and cosine mean.
I think bringing examples from interesting applications rather than simply finances is a better way of teaching because if we're really being honest here, most people do not budget their incomes. They spend it. Someone who is already good at math and has the motivation to do that will. But if I want to get somebody interested in math I think I would rather have them calculate how long it would take for an egg to touch the ground from a 20,000 foot drop, neglecting a bunch of stuff, just for fun. In order to do that, they need to know what a quadratic is, how to solve and manipulate a quadratic, and have some amount of problem solving skills.
I'm slightly afraid of students not respecting me as a teacher. I am from a very very large city. I would be teaching in underdeveloped communities you see, and I don't want to come to a classroom that does not want to learn because of what is happening at home. I am not the most charismatic guy, but I can explain higher level concepts to people in a way that makes sense. I just hope these kids have the motivation and willingness to listen to me despite the troubles they might be going through.
I'm not really afraid of parents as much. I know, saying they are adults and that they would be easier to handle is not true. However, i think I could find a way to make communication streamlined and much less of a hassle than what i hear from other teachers.
That's my list. Idk if my goals are too ambitious. I hope they are not. I would like to make a change in the world.
Hey there I've replied below to your paragraphs (labelling them as 1, 2, 3 etc)
1) Students do live in a tough time where they consume a lot of short, sharp content, and probably makes their focus worse than it used to be back in the day. I haven't noticed a complete brain rot or anything though, I can still manage to get students to focus for reasonable amounts of time. It's all about the expectations you set for them.
2) I think for some kids, teaching those fundamental skills is a great idea! (I assume you're talking in like year 9/10?). However there's plenty of kids who struggle throughout all of high school with the most basic algebraic principles (collecting like terms, solving simple equations etc) and adding in differentiation would be completely useless. If you can identify a group of kids/class that would benefit from this extension, than thats your prerogative and I don't think Admin would have a problem with it at all. If, however, you abandon the actual curriculum in this pursuit, than that would be a bad idea and not recommended.
3) Nothing wrong with throwing some practical scenarios for kids, but again, it will depend on the level of kid and content being taught. If you're teaching solving linear equations, than throwing a quadratic to represent the position of a thrown particle won't make sense because they're struggling with the concept of inverse operations, not worrying about using the null factor law and that sort of thing. As long as your "extension" or "application" questions align with the content being taught, than there's not problem with it whatsoever, and in fact is what I do and would recommend.
4) In specialist math and math methods, we do exactly this. Whether this would work for year 9/10 students trying to calculate simple trig problems, I'm not so sure. Honestly though, as a brief aside, say, a lesson to explore it, there's no harm. At the end of the day, you're a professional and you do what you think is best for explaining the math concepts. The only real risk is getting bogged down in higher level mathematics that the majority of students don't understand, and wasting precious time. Everything is worth trying, but don't get too discouraged if it doesn't work out.
5) You'd be shocked at how many people in the world, who are very fine mathematicians, suck with money. I would HIGHLY recommend that wherever possible you use financial mathematics. It gives you an opportunity to educate students on the importance of budgeting, taxation, superannuation, saving, investing etc. All such important topics, far more important than projectile motion or physics. If a student if very interested in math, they will explore those application topics of physics at some point, but often we never teach them how to manage their finances because "they're smart, they'll figure it out" - when in reality, they probably wont.
6) This is where some hard truths might need to be told regarding teaching - teaching is 80% relationships, 20% content. There's no use being the best explainer in the world if the kids don't want to listen to you. To be an effective teacher, you need to earn the students trust and respect first. You do this through empathising with their situations, caring about their interests, dealing with poor behaviour maturely and respectfully. Once you earn their trust and respect, then you can teach and they will learn, but if you try and skip to this step without getting to know them, you'll lose the majority. Sure there'll be some students who care deeply about their education and regardless of what you're like as a person, they'll learn from you, but this is a small minority. You don't need to be the most charasmatic person in the world to talk to a kid, to listen to them, to sympathise with their issues at home, to give personal advice, etc. If you purely want to teach math and not deal with the students emotions, become a tutor or a university lecturer, but don't become a teacher.
7) Dealing with parents definitely isn't as hard as people make it out to be. They follow the 80/20 rule anyway, 20% of parents take up 80% of your time. Being proactive will make your life much easier as well. This isn't something to worry about in my opinion.
It's awesome that you want to help our kids understand math better and change the world, you and I are the same in that regard. My only concern is that you are hyper-focusing on the content, but not the little humans being taught. It is a very satisfying feeling when students start to "get math", however this reward comes only after some tough ground-work of building relationships with them (mostly). As long as you don't neglect this, I think you'd make a wonderful math teacher, as your knowledge and mathematical ambition in the class room is much needed! Good luck!
Would be interested to hear your perspective on inter-class abilities and strategies for neither leaving some students behind, or leaving others hopelessly bored. What do I do if one of my year eight students is struggling with times tables, while another seems ready for abstract algebra and Godel’s theorems(or more realistically yr 11 level work)?
Intra-class***
Probably the toughest challenge in all of teaching that Jono! It’s definitely something I’ve been working at for a few years now. Happy to share my thoughts, I’ll get a video in the pipeline!
Hey mate! Appreciate your vids! Im 35M in QLD and considering a career change via a masters degree in education (will be a pay cut, but has always been something I thought id be good at). I know this question is incredibly hard to answer, but would you recommend the career?
I understand theres pros and cons to each career, but given the opportunity to rewind the clock, would you do it again?
Hey Zach, sorry for the late reply! Yes if it's something that you've always wanted to pursue, then I'd definitely recommend it. I was similar in that I studied IT/Multimedia before I became a teacher, but there was always a nagging feeling in the back of my mind that I should be a teacher. Don't regret it for a second, and I'm so happy I did it. I think that if you would like to take a crack at it, why not - Life is short. Good luck!
@@markjodonohue Really appreciate the reply mate. Think I'll give it a crack, cheers!
I am a current student in Education. My biggest fear is school shootings. I have anxiety but I feel this is a normal thing to be worried about especially in the states. This did stop me pursing my Bachelors and I took a break because when I was in school two years ago the pandemic just started and my state was talking about arming teachers.I was not prepared to start when life has been turned upside down for a lot of people. Is this something you worry about going to school? Is there any advice that you can give?
That’s definitely a valid concern if you’re over in the states. I’m lucky in that being from Australia, there’s pretty much 0 gun violence across the whole country. So unfortunately I’m not able to really give personal advice on how to deal with that.
With that said, you definitely have to look after yourself first. If you don’t feel comfortable teaching (for any reason really) then you shouldn’t put yourself in that position.
There’s another awesome teacher on here, CJ Reynolds (Real Rap With Reynolds) who I know has taught in rough parts of the US, it might be worth sending him a message because he might be able to give you a more personalised answer.
Hey Mark, you mentioned in one of your videos that you manage a chess club at your school. Being an Educator myself, I am very interested in this aspect of your life. I recognise this might not be a topic to speak on for everyone, thus I would truly appreciate it if we could have a chat about it.
Absolutely! Extra Curricular responsibilities (even self imposed ones) sounds like a great topic for a video.
If you wanted more of a general chat, jump into the discord (link on my CZcams channel page) and we can chat about it
Great video and i love your attitude. You are what our kids need right now. Keep up the great work, i know it must be so hard and stressful at times but the difference you are making to not just the kids but society in general is HUGE! Im in my early 50's and i am 4 subjects in to becoming a PST. The thing that concerns me the most is the far left ideology the curriculum is taking on (how do you get around politics you do not agree with?) I just want to teach kids what they need to know to be a good functioning adult, not complicate things with race, sexual orientation, climate change, and other subjective issues.
Hey Bluejhaygrl, I appreciate your kind words.
Regarding the politics and social issues part, I just share my own opinions, but make it clear they're just that, opinions. I really value critical thinking so regardless of the topic of discussion (outside of our math lessons) as long as we explore it with our critical thinking hats on, I don't see the harm.
Yes, race, sexual orientation, climate change, etc are all divisive issues, however I think that's what makes them important to discuss. I don't necessarily bring them up and push my agenda on the students, but certainly if the topics arise I don't shy away from the conversation. I think part of being a good functioning adult as you phrased it, is being aware of the social issues and being able to discuss all perspectives in an honest and open way.
Basically my outlook is that teaching students to think critically and evaluate issues from multiple perspectives will actually help them become more functioning adults. We need to have students challenging their own beliefs, the beliefs of others, and most importantly, be open to changing their opinion. A big gripe I have with the world at the moment is people being criticised for a change of opinion - all that does is make people less likely to do it! Changing opinions in the face of facts and/or persuasive argument is a very mature virtue to have, and I want all my students to have it - it's the catalyst for an open mind.
❤