Secondary school Archives

Never hesitate to “big up your bad self”! Tongue-in-cheek flexing is a great way to bring a light-hearted element to your lessons. It is a brief repose from the seriousness of teaching and learning.

Teachers and students laughing on Freepik.com

Excellence is an attitude

As a teacher you will become intimate with all aspects of your personality. Any air and graces will be chased away promptly as you dig deep into being your authentic and unfiltered self.

You will have to come to terms with your actual subject knowledge, your pedagogical skills, your capacity for patience and your sense of humour.

Excellence in all areas should always be your goal. Excellence, however, like flexing is also an attitude.

When I was in primary school, in Year 6 I drew a drawing of a Viking boat. My teacher complimented me on the technique I used to emphasise the wood. He said it was excellent. Ever since then I have considered myself an excellent artist. Drawing is my flex. Any (most) drawings that I produce that are below par I consider as me just having a bad day. My confidence in my artistic abilities will not be shaken.

Your haters are your motivators

I take that same energy to all of my lessons. As I science teacher I often have to draw the Earth, cells, plants, animals, transportation and so on in order to illustrate a point.

I am often met with howls of protest and looks of confusion. I am, however, impervious to any negative feedback, and I always insist that what I have drawn is in very good (if not excellent). If they disagree, then that is unfortunate.

Find your flex

You will also have an aspect of your delivery for example, a style of writing, that they will be merciless when offering critique. Find it and offer it up to be mocked.

Be bold. Be brave and don’t budge.

This is a great way to let them “in on the joke” with you. A little bit of levity that it appropriately pitched but not so raucous as to actively interrupt the flow of your lesson.

Big up your bad self

Finding a small piece of you that the students can collectively drag you on is a nice way of letting them know that you are comfortable with being more “human”.

Be really bad at something – drawing, mathematics, pronunciation – give them something to mock you about. This is a great way to introduce some levity if needed.

It is not essential that you find your “shtick” and laboriously work it into the lesson like a comedy routine.

I guarantee that the pupils will find many reasons to laugh at you. Openly or otherwise.

Any disrespect does, of course, have to be handled according to your school’s behaviour policy but find the joke that you’re happy to turn on it’s head and use it as an opportunity to be more relatable.

Sprinkle the flex

Being the butt of the joke does not mean being the class clown. It is important to strike a very fine balance so always keep it short and sweet. Never allow it to deviate from the core of your lesson.

How to maintain your authenticity and sanity in the classroom.

There are many different types of teachers. This article states 14 different types. As you continue your teaching career you need to consider what type of teacher you are. You need to consider what kind of personality style you want to adopt.

Adopt a personality style?

But I want to always be my authentic self with the children!!!

You will be. Kind of.

It is a little naïve to think that your personality only has one mode and that you are exactly the same all of the time to everyone equally.

Think of how you interact with your grandparents at Sunday lunch versus how you interact with your best friends at Saturday night drinks. Are you being authentic with them? Yes. Are you speaking and behaving in the exact same way with both of them? I hope not.

The greatest showman

The same applies in school. Think of your role in the classroom as a performer. Before you arrive, you have planned the seating, the lesson, the classwork, and the homework. If you are a very new teacher, you will also have practiced teaching the lesson.

This all needs to be delivered in a certain amount of time. All while keeping an eye out that your instructions are being followed, off task behaviour is in check and everyone is clear about what to do next. You are executing instructions, explanations, demonstrations, questions, and corrections in a pre-arranged format. As well as being clear on what you are going to teach it follows that you should also plan how to teach it.

You will naturally gravitate to being one (or a combination) of the 14 teaching styles above. Consider in advance the type of relationship dynamic you want to strike between you and your pupils. You will be better informed about what type of “vibe” you want to promote in your classroom.

For example, the Enthusiastic Teacher may encourage lots of discussions of topics between students before they tackle independent work. The Traditional Teacher, however, will most likely restrict class discussions because of the greater opportunity it allows for off task chatter between pupils.

Persona non-grata?

When you are connecting with the class it is through this assumed version of your normal self. You are likely to be more exaggerated in your facial expressions, more expressive with your hand and body movements, more modulated with the tone and volume of your voice.

Perfection will not be achieved, but you can improve every lesson by being intentional about your persona. You can only be intentional however by planning in advance.

Shake it off?

Adopting a persona maintains your sanity because you’re only giving part of yourself – a curated (and yes, contrived) version. This way you are protecting the rest of “you” so when the inevitable verbal assaults of teenage rudeness, backchat and disdain come, they aren’t attacking you but your persona.

Consequences should be issued in line with your school policy when this happens, but don’t take it personally. You are just another teacher to them – they cannot be aiming anything at you because they don’t know you.

In my experience the teachers that suffer the most from being disrespected always state that they are shocked because the pupils were their friends and had got to know them.

They had adopted the Cool Teacher or Teacher Buddy persona and considered that they were regarded in a different way to the other teachers. By sharing details of their personal lives and connecting with the students outside of lessons they assumed that they would get a pass and therefore be immune to any bad behaviour from the little monsters.

Sharing your private life with pupils has to be very carefully managed or it can be detrimental to both you and the pupils.

Remember that you should, of course, be friendly. But they are never your friend. It doesn’t matter if they like you/ hate you/ tolerate you. You are there to teach them. Your job is to assume your best teacher persona in order that you can give them the best teaching experience possible. Who YOU are is irrelevant.

Tag: Secondary school

How to flex