So THAT’S Why Teachers Work So Hard Despite Unsatisfactory Pay and Difficult Conditions.
Photo – Omri Epstein
School may have not been mentioned at all in this article about Proffesor Adam Grant’s (a proffesor of organizational psychology) theory but he makes it crystal clear.
Grant says that people work harder when they know who benefits from their work, when they know their work matters. “The greatest untapped source of motivation, he argues, is a sense of service to others; focusing on the contribution of our work to other people’s lives has the potential to make us more productive than thinking about helping ourselves”.
Teachers have the benificiaries of their work squarely in front of them every day. We don’t need initatives from a highly popular proffesor to organize meetings at the workplace with the people who have been influenced by what we do.
His claim that this is the most powerful motivator certainly makes sense to me, as many teachers that I know work in overcrowded classrooms, in uncomfortable physical conditions and their pay does not reflect the hours of work put in. Yet there the teachers are!
Perhaps you may say that I see references to teaching everywhere, but it seems a perfect fit for me!
P.S I’m now one of the lucky teachers who have a working air-conditioner in her class!
I was surprised to see that the title of the English translation from Italian is “Me, You”. In Hebrew the name of the book is “You, Mine”, a line which is repeated several times in the book and is most certainly related in the story to the possesive form. The orignal title in Italian is “Tu, Mio”, which (as I understand it) is closer to the Hebrew tranlsation.
This is the fourth book I’ve read by this author. The trouble with that is, of course, one tends to compare. I still claim that “The Day before Happiness” is his best. “God’s Mountain” is a close second. This book is good, but it didn’t move me in the same manner and I didn’t get “lost” in the story the way I did when reading those books.
The pace is a fisherman’s pace, slow and patient. The 16 year old boy learns a lot about life while learning how to fish off the coast of Naples in the 1950’s. I got a bit more information about fishing than I desired. The hero is obsessed with the what no one wants to talk about – WWll and with a Jewish girl he has met.
The author’s style captivates, as always, from the first paragraph. But at times I wished a strong wind would blow and push the story forward a little faster. Nevertheless, at no point did I consider the option of abandoning ship.
I really wanted the new classroom to look a real English Room the moment the students walk through the door.
I wanted the “phrasal verbs with pictures” , the world map and pictures of the fours seasons to be up.
I wanted the word-card boxes to be full and arranged at the station.
I wanted the library corner to be nicely arranged.
I wanted the curtains washed (they were hung in a very complex way, awfully high, and I need the janitor to find the time to take them down).
But my family is getting tired of hearing about my classroom and one of my administrators said I should stop feeling sorry for myself. This is after I made sure once again that she knew that the air-conditioner had not yet arrived and it is beastly hot in the room which I am clearing out. And how I can’t do any decorating til after the drilling for the air-conditioner will be done (you know, pieces of plaster and dust everywhere) and the wall-carpets will be hung.
So lets count the things that are ready.
School starts on Tuesday. If the air-conditioner DOES arrive on Sunday as promised, it will be possible to teach there. Because, thanks to help from my good friend Dorit and my son, the classroom has progressed from looking worse than this (it was full of junk when I got it):
to this:
The ceiling is new and the two extra doors have been sealed. I have more closet space than I have ever had. The holes in the wall are hidden behind the sad computer covered in the back (they WILL be dealt with, just not for the first day). As long as the air-conditoner arrives, a teacher armed with material for the first lessons and a BIG SMILE can work in this room. Even if it doesn’t look like an ENGLISH room yet. Right? Right!
P.S – Still mourning the loss of Internet connection though. I’m optimistic that I will get it at some point but we used the Internet intensively till now…
I know that’s a strange way to put it, considering that I have absolutely no connection to the area, the language or its people (I don’t even know any expats!).
But its the third book I’ve read by the same author. It IS different from the others, while retaining a familiarity. I know I’m in danger of sounding “Schmaltzy” here but I see Hosseini as a storyteller. One whom I trust.
I think the feeling was made much stronger because I listened to this book as an audio-book. Excellent choice for audio-book, because there are three readers, one of whom is the author himeself. All three readers have local accents and intonation. Hosseini often mentions in his books the Afghan love of stortytelling. Listening to the book enhanced the feeling of sessions with the master storyteller, even though I wasn’t sitting on a rug while listening!
Last year my students and I joined a new global project set up by the inspiring and creative Arlene Blum. Slowly she has been enlarging the number of high-school programs for deaf and hard of hearing students from around the world participating in the project. You can see her new welcome post for the new school year, introducing us to Cambodia (and its sign language) here: A Global Blog For Deaf and Hard Of Hearing Students
A sign in Spain / Family Photos
Keeping up the students’ interest in a global project over a long period of time is challenging. We added a private group on Edmodo.com so that the students could post more personal things in a protected manner (the blog can be viewed by all). I think the feature my students love best on Edmodo is the poll feature. THAT they are always ready to do! But the fact that Edmodo looks a lot like Facebook (but is NOT connected to it) actually emphasized the issue that “turned off” many students. They are unable to chat “live” with their global partners. Even if the program offered it, the time difference doesn’t allow it. These teens are used to instant gratification. Writing and then having to wait for a reply seems so odd to them. Particularly as our American friends have a two day weekend. If one of my students comments on a post Sunday morning, asking a question, the earliest possible reply will be read Tuesday morning (assuming the American student answered first thing Monday morning, which is Monday afternoon here).
I ended the school year thinking about how to deal with that problem (hadn’t come up with a solution). Now that I have been moved to a different classroom (updates on THAT story next week!) I no longer have an Internet connection in class!
I think participating in such a project is very important for my students. There is so much they don’t know about the world! Some didn’t even know that children abroad don’t go to school on Sundays or that it rains in the summer!
So how do we do it without and Internet connection in class?
My ideas so far are:
1) See what we can do with cell phones. Last year only two of my students didn’t have a smart-phone, one of which because she lost hers three times and her parents wouldn’t buy her a fourth! Edmodo has an app, but you can’t yet use it for all the functions on the site.
2) Look for volunteers to take students to the computers in the school library. A lot of luck involved in this plan…
It seems that Lionel Shriver specializes in tackling difficult subjects, ones that we don’t like to talk about. I thought that after reading “We need to talk about Kevin”, which was about a postively explosive subject, I wouldn’t want to try any of Shriver’s other books.
But Lionel Shriver writes REALLY well and I had trouble putting this one down. Its a good thing school hasn’t started yet – I didn’t want to stop reading!
It took me a number of days till I even told my husband what the book was about. Who wants to read a book that deals with death and illness? When I tried to describe it I was worried about creating the impression that the book is full of clichés and platitudes.
I didn’t find it to be the case. There is something refreshing about airing these things. Lets face it, they are an inescapable part of life. And there is humor in the book! I did not feel depressed while reading.
In fact, at the end of the book (why didn’t the publisher place it at the beginnging?) there is a section where the author writes about the letters she has received from readers. Readers who say how they postponed reading it because it sounded intimidating and then were so glad they did.
I recommend it.
*** It took a while until it sunk in that the author is a woman. Lionel is not a name I’ve encountered for a woman anywhere else.
O.k. I’m not arguing out loud with live people. There aren’t any available and at school we never talk about such things.
But I AM arguing with a book, teacher’s magazines, blog posts and postings on social media. It’s time to get back into the mindset of returning to school and I object to the attitude of “All you need is LOVE”.
I think the meaning of LOVE is being badly abused.
LOVE isn’t a switch the teacher turns on when the school year begins and then turns off on the last day. LOVE doesn’t have an expiry date known in advance, otherwise known as the end of the year.
In relationships where LOVE is truly present, participants don’t administer tests, grade performance regularly (in numbers) and possibly fail achieving the objective (aka the class). Behavior isn’t recorded each time the participants meet in a computer program, as it is in school.
In fact, very often excellent teachers do not make good tutors for their own personal children. That’s telling, isn’t it?
Objectives. That’s the key. Classes are designed, by nature, to achieve certain objectives.
In order to achieve those objectives, a student, any student, needs to feel respected, valued. That his/her abilities are applauded while weaknesses are recognized, addressed and not belittled.
Above all the student needs to trust the teacher. Trust the teacher to be a professional with the knowledge, ability and desire to assist the student on the path to achieving the objectives, receiving suitable support along the way.
The classroom must be a safe place for a student.
There are many demands the teacher must live up to.
Among the “rainfall” of books I received for my birthday, I was fortunate to receive a collection of poems by Wislawa Szymborska.
I had heard of her but hadn’t read anything of hers. Somehow, when I go to the library, I don’t look for poetry.
But a book of poems is good to own, because I find it good to read it slowly. Read a poem and think about it. Then read it again. I’ve only read a few of them so far and I am excited. Its good to know that I have many more to savor in the coming months.
This particular one, True Love, I’ve read quite a few times.
It just rings so true.
It makes me think of people I know. The ones who are searching and dreaming, the ones who used to but stopped and those who don’t need to anymore.
It’s a poem I understand without studying it in a Lit. course, reading support material or working hard to decipher it. It strikes home right away.
Interesting to note that in Hebrew the poem is called “Happy Love”. It adds an emphasis, don’t you think?
I was told that work WAS done in the new classroom I’m supposed to move into, as follows:
* The two extra doors were sealed. The “new” room I’m getting used to be the storage room of a large biology lab that was converted into a classroom for a 40 student class (standard class size). There were two doors connecting the lab to the storage area from inside, without going out into the hallway. This former storage space is about a third of the size of the room I had. I believe 25 students could fit into my former room.
* An acoustic ceiling was installed.
* An air-conditioner has been ordered, but has not yet arrived.
* I can keep the computer I had but no instructions were left for it to be hooked up to the Internet. That needs to be negotiated with the pricipal (who is currently on vacation) and a direct order given.
* If I come to school tomorrow I will be assigned a student who will help transfer the contents of the two PACKED cupboards of material I left in the old classroom. There is supposed to be a cupboard in the new one. They aren’t moving the old (really old) ones I had.
Needless to say, I’m very excited.
I haven’t seen the room yet.
So many unanswered questions.
I don’t know what the quality of the rennovation work is. Were those addtional two doors sealed well or will I hear everything going on in the 40 student clasroom on the other side of the wall? This is this most critical question for the hard of hearing students (the profoundly deaf students won’t mind, at least, but there are very few students who don’t hear anything at all) and for me.
Will there be room to fit any work stations for our learning center when 8-10 students are actually in the room?
If the answer is “yes”, will students not at a work station be totally distracted by what’s going on at one (some are fun!) because there isn’t enough space between areas?
Will I have to give up, due to lack of space, on some of the materials I have?
Encountered a “Puffin” in France, too!
At the moment though, my emotional reaction is stronger than logic. Before the classroom that was taken from me, I had had a previous one (it was an air raid shelter that we used, but it worked). That adds up to TWENTY years of working in an English room that I was in charge of. I even had an English room for a while at one of the elementary schools I taught at more than 25 years ago. For the past few weeks I simply could not “wrap my thoughts around” the picture of me having no designated room at all, teaching every hour in a different part of this HUGE HUGE high-school.
Unless the acoustics are a total disaster, that will be one thing I can stop trying to imagine. Whew!
The main character in the second story of Kazuo Ishiguro’s book “Nocturnes, Five Stories of Music and Nightfall” is a British Council English Teacher, based mainly in Spain (some time in Italy and Portugal was spent too).
At first I found that fact quite amusing. I don’t see this profession mentioned often in stories! However, I wouldn’t suggest that my friends and acquatiances in the British Council teaching system begin recommending this story as a way for their family and friends to have more respect for their profession. Ray, the teacher, is invited to visit his friends back home in England because his presence makes them look better/more successful in comparison…
I LOVED Ishiguro’s books “The Remainder of the Day” and “Never Let Me Go” and enjoyed most of “When We Were Orphans”. I was disappointed by this one. Not by his style of writing – that did not disappoint at all. But the five stories followed a very pattern, like a mold. Perhaps if I had read each story on its own, with a few months between each one, I would have enjoyed them more.
As much as I do believe in the magical power of music, it is depressing to read FIVE stories in a row of loss and missed opportunities, even if music is presented as the one uniting bond. Music can be part of many of life’s experiences, I’d like to believe!
Teaching English as a FOREIGN language to Deaf and Hard of Hearing Students
