Читать книгу Riding the Wave - Jeremy S. Adams - Страница 25

At one point or another, almost every teacher has faced an intimidating reform—such as incorporating new technologies, flipping classrooms, confronting students’ emotional issues, or conducting an unorthodox lesson—and thought to him- or herself, “You’ve got to be kidding. That isn’t me! I can’t do that.”

When facing change, you must stay yourself. As you will see, this can mean a multiplicity of different things. But this much is certain: resistance to reform is natural. When teachers don’t feel suited to new educational developments, they may feel as if they must lose their teaching style and their entire self in the process of reform. But they can maintain their personalities during such changes. The idea is that you should never try to be a teacher you aren’t. Teachers who master the ability to absorb new demands while maintaining who they are as individual teachers will stay positive and continue to flourish through turbulent times.

How do they achieve this duality? By realizing that they still have considerable power over their own classrooms. As researcher Mark Feng Teng (2017) observes, “There is an interconnection between teachers’ professional identities and their sense of agency” (p. 119). In more practical terms, what does this look like? Teachers can maintain a sense of control by:

Implementing changes at their own pace

Approaching change as an opportunity to add new color to their teaching canvas instead of as a demand to burn what they have already painted

Holding on to unique personality traits or quirks

Preserving assignments and activities that they especially enjoy or value

Funny teachers should retain their sense of humor. Teachers who tell stories should absolutely keep telling stories. Teachers who like a strict schedule should continue scheduling.

Sound reforms will allow for the natural diversity that exists among teachers who stand in front of the classroom day after day, week after week, and sometimes decade after decade. After all, there is a vast difference between a dictate to “change what you do in the classroom” and a dictate to “change who you are in the classroom.” Teaching is an activity rooted in a common humanity and delivered with teachers’ force of personality, and shedding that personality is fraught with drawbacks, such as feeling like a fraud or phony in front of one’s students. Your personal teaching style is a reservoir of joy in the teaching profession. So if this style serves you and your students well, you should continue to drink from this reservoir and remain loyal to this style while confronting change. Your prosperity in the classroom and your experience of teaching’s greatest rewards depend on your sense of agency and individuality amid constant change.