I find it fascinating how many people can remember their teachers – even if their school days were a long time ago. Their names. The ones whom we liked. The ones who got the best out of us … and the ones who didn’t!
On the whole, I enjoyed school and I liked my teachers. Most of them, anyway.
Teachers can influence us, for good or otherwise. And I believe that those of us who teach or train others in some way need to be aware of our responsibilities to others and the impact we can have on them.
I remember one primary school teacher. My enthusiasm for learning was too much. My joy was too much! My questions were too much. I was too much. She lost her temper with me. She could have made me never want to open my mouth again … that didn’t happen, but part of me became more subdued for a while. School wasn’t supposed to make you curious and want to talk about what you were learning? Who knew? 🙄
But there were many other teachers too – people who inspired me, made me think, made me want to do my best, made me feel seen and heard. I’m grateful for them!
But I also witnessed a student being ridiculed by the teacher for taking too long or not knowing the answers. That’s not ok. By that time, I’d shelved my ideas about going into teaching – because I didn’t want to work in a school – but I knew that if ever I did end up in front of a class, I wouldn’t do that.
I wonder how that former student feels about the subject now? Probably they don’t feel anything – we don’t think about most subjects again unless they’re somehow related to what we want to do. But I think if this individual ever had to revisit that subject, those memories might come back.
And then there were my language teachers. Languages were my favourite subject and I usually had fun in the lessons. Even though I preferred German to French, our French teacher was kind and she brought us hot chocolate and croissants at the end of the school year! The small things count! I remember things she taught us too, but everyone looked forward to the chocolate!
I had a German teacher who inspired me too – she expected a lot and she challenged us, but I also felt that I wanted to try harder – because she believed I could do it! Most of the time I could do more than I thought I could and this was a good place to start before I went out into the world and actually used the languages.
How about you? Do you remember your language teachers? I’m specifically talking about school, because higher education is something we choose – wheras school is mandatory! Do your experiences then affect how you feel about the language now, especially if you need to work with it?
Whether it’s languages or some other subject, if the experiences were good, they can be a great motivator. If they weren’t, your past doesn’t have to shape your future – as an adult you’re in charge of how you want your learning experience to be and who gets to be part of it. As adults we have a lot more freedom to decide how we want to learn, with whom, alone or in a group, and which methods we like or believe will bring us the best results.
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