Feeling inadequate

[DanyellasDonkey]

Until recently I was on quite a few FB pages for teachers where they would share ideas etc. I have now stopped following them as they make me feel so inadequate. I work in a good school, where kids learn and parents are happy with what we are doing, yet we seem to be very boring in comparison to some of these teachers.

Is everyone going around making mud kitchens, building rain forests in their classrooms and making bags of gloopy, glittery stuff? Nobody I know does stuff like this but it seems to be the norm on these pages

You have to put these things into perspective. They might have made a mud kitchen. They might be playing with glittery sand. But they're not doing all of it, all the time.

The parenting blogs are even worse, if you take them seriously. Especially if you have PND, or go to work, or have a child who doesn't want to follow the blog rule book. But they have some great ideas for the times you need them. Maybe it's the same with the teaching ones.

Everyone has different strengths as a teacher and you have to play to yours. I've accepted long ago that I'm not the creative type of teacher who can come up with amazing ideas so there's no point in feeling bad about it. I'm a solidly traditional teacher who teaches from the front (secondary), explains things in a way that the kids can understand and while my lessons might not wow anyone, they get the job done. And there are kids out there who actually prefer that.

I do keep an eye on what the 'fun' teachers are up to and occasionally steal one of their activities.

I did stuff like that at first when I was an NQT... once I got a few years in I'd become a teach from the front. I'd imagine these people are young and fresh and possibly without a young family.

Thanks - that has made me feel better. I guess I'm a bit of an old fart but the kids are doing fine so that's the main thing. As long as they're learning what they're meant to be, it doesn't really matter which way you teach.

We have had a trendy, all-singing, all-dancing teacher for the last few years. The kids love her, the parents hate her as the kids are not learning the basics. She has got another job so she will soon be another school's problem

you have to take the 'outstanding lessons' with a pinch of salt, for instance i was recently at an inservice day and the slt showed us a video of an approved outstanding lesson but many of the staff said it was not and some very established teachers said it was a requires improvement...good/poor teaching is subjective.

Likewise be wary of teachers who tell you how much they have it under control or are doing a great job.For example once I was working in a very well behaved primary school and was chatting to a teacher who was there on her teaching placement-her 1st ever school, she told me she ''had really good behaviour management skills''. Flaw in her boasting statement was that everyone in the school had great behaviour management skills because behaviour was rarely an issue...perhaps had she worked in a challenging comprehensive she'd soon see if she had good behaviour management skills she was telling the world she had.

They make me feel inadequate too, OP. And yet I still read them. I'm a glutton for punishment!

I stopped subscribing to most of those pages as it left me feeling inadequate. But I also recognised that most of the posters seemed to be young teachers, mainly NQTs or RQTs with no families, who lived and breathed teaching and spent their entire time making resources, and blogging and working on displays.

My classroom is not as whizzy as theirs. I don't have time to do all the stuff they do, but my day to day teaching is absolutely spot on. My questioning skills, my ability to predict and spot misconceptions, my on-the-go assessment of learning, my flexibility to adapt lessons on the hoof to match
that, my huge depth of experience in teaching etc means that my children make great progress. That's good. It's enough. That's what I tell myself, and you should too.

Do these Facebook posts talk about what the children actually learned, or just about how 'engaged' they were?

"Why don’t students remember more of what they’re learning? Willingham says teachers need to beware of preoccupying themselves too much with making subject matter relevant to students. If a teacher has students baking biscuits to learn about the Underground Railroad or working on a PowerPoint to learn about the Spanish Civil War, what students will remember is how to bake a biscuit and how to make a smoking PowerPoint. They will remember next to nothing about the Underground Railroad and the Spanish Civil War."

www.ernweb.com/educational-research-articles/why-dont-students-like-schoolby-daniel-willingham/