HAY EVERYONE THANK YOU FOR WELCOMING ME TO THE GROUP THIS IS MY SUCCESS STORY Hi Rosalie, Here is my second email, which I will also be amending-as-appropriate and sending to my cooperating teacher and my unit coordinator. I have decided to drop out of prac and the program of study. It took a long hard few months of sorting through my thoughts to come to this decision. I knew I loved being around kids and for the longest time I thought this would be enough to make me a happy, successful teacher. The fact of the matter is I am not enjoying my time on prac, I am not finding joy in being with children anymore, I do not find any motivation planning lessons or satisfaction implementing them, or in fact doing anything related to my role as a student teacher. I recognise that often my thoughts are irrational when I am tired or stressed, and have been able to remind myself of this on past prac days and thus avoid drastic situations until a good-nights-sleep has been had, but today I am in a fairly calm, collected headspace, am neither tired nor stressed, and have had a long conversation with my intelligent father who has experience in this kind of dilemma, and am feeling confident that I have sorted through my thoughts to find what is true. Having become a lot more self-aware over the past couple of years of my life, I have paid a lot more attention to my thoughts and trying to work out where they come from and what feelings they are related to. Something that has been difficult for me, especially over the past few months, has been working out whether I truly do want to be a teacher. The issue here is that I have not been able to work out whether my doubt about my future in teaching is due to a) my lack of self-confidence, which is due to my lack of ability/knowledge, which is due to my lack of study, which is due to my lack of motivation, which is due to never having my educational needs met in any of my schooling, thus coasting through school with ease and never having to learn how to work to achieve anything or b) whether or not I have the skills, interests, motivations, style-of-cognition and abilities. If my doubts are due to point (a) mentioned above, then the natural option is to just work a lot harder, to get the ability and knowledge in order to have the self-confidence that will allow me to experience positivity about my self-efficacy as a teacher. It is this answer that drove me to see a uni counsellor to work on some strategies for overcoming procrastination and making me want to work. Such as it is, there is no magic cure and it is in fact up to myself to become motivated and overcome procrastination. I was initially feeling positive about this prac due to my uplifiting conversations with her, but as you are reading and will read, I have come to more realistic (rather than simply optimistic) attitudes toward myself. If my doubts are due to point (b) mentioned above, then it naturally follows that I should not become a teacher as I am not right for the job and will not being doing myself or the children any favours by taking it. I do not feel as though I have a style-of-cognition that is conducive to being an effective teacher. I have poor organisation skills (something that my wonderful uni teacher Kate Highfield offered to have lunch with me to discuss; we never did), and I have a style-of-cognition that is more suited to individual tasks that I can focus intense attention to, rather than dividing my attention across a whole class and across multiple responsibilities. These two qualities are well recognised by both me and my parents, who know me better than anyone else. I realise now more than ever that the simple fact that I am not motivated to learn/study material about education means I am in fact not interested in being a teacher. I only thought I was because this is the most relevant kid-related job for most societies, including our own. I know what kind of a person makes a teacher; as recognised by both myself and my parents, my older sister is a shining example and she will do well in her role as a teacher (she is graduating this year), having adopted a very teacher-esque role toward me in our earliest of childhood years. It was overly optimistic of me to think I could be an effective teacher with my personality and way-of-being. An important influence on my current thought-patterns was seeing and being with the kids at the school disco. I realised that I love being with children who are being themselves. The disco was a beautiful experience for me. This afternoon I was able to link up some of my thoughts and came to the conclusion that putting myself into a full-time job where children are required to obey and submit and act out of character in order to function at the closest they can to equilibrium in the school environment is not something I can value as a teacher. I tried to direct my thoughts to altruisms such as making a difference in childrens lives to re-motivate me, but such as it is, it is apparent that perhaps those thoughts are not true, as they are not automatic (I have to TELL myself them) and thus perhaps they do not represent my actual truth. My fellow teaching-students and I have been made aware of some absolutely brilliant teachers by our university lecturers, teachers who a) love children, b) love teaching, and c) have strong levels of self-motivation to enhance their practice. These are teachers who provide motivating experiences that are utterly engaging and relevant to the children and provide wonderfully democratic learning environments that take into account each individual students needs. This is a beautiful thing to aspire to, but such as it is, it is only the first of the afore-mentioned characteristics that I possess. I simply do not have the motivation to become a great teacher, or as I realise now, any teacher. I am fairly certain this is the thick-and-thin of it. Thank you for spending the time that you have spent on my teacher-education, but I felt that this evening was an important time to let you know that spending any more time on it would be a waste of both of our time and I do not want to inflict that responsibility on either of us. I will inform all the relevant people. Warmest regards, Caleb.
Posted on: Wed, 22 Oct 2014 12:46:32 +0000
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