By looking for an answer to this question I have come to the conclusion that being flexible with our own principles and aware of our kid´s reality may be key issues in understanding our role today !
Society has changed and kids today have realities which are totally different from ours at their age, those kids’parents have also very different lifes compared to our parents´. Parents are too busy and tend to solve whatever situation the child has to face to make it easier, to make it quicker, so as to go on with his/her responsibilities. Children are too demanding , they are used to having their parents solving their things , doing what they want, responding to those demands, and of course we have kids that live a couple of days with their mother and some other days with their father, which makes them very flexible but at the same time very disorganised!
As a consequence of all this being a teacher today implies accompanying children in all these aspects. Passing on knowledge, correcting mistakes, and reporting on sts’ behaviour is not enough! We have to develop many more skills to be able to help them grow.
What we bring from the places where we studied, is mainly connected to the academic fields, to the teaching of contents, but what about the rest? As soon as we start working at a school we get to know that contents are just a part of the reality we will have to face.
We are teachers of young children and this implies a great responsibility, I read in an article that “Many educators feel that effectiveness as a teacher stems from a combination of knowledge, skills and personal characteristics” ( Katz 1993)The point is that while our knowledge can be increased, our personal characteristics are likely to be more fixed. This is the reason why, it may be so difficult for us to accept, understand and comprehend the different kids we have in our classrooms. Some of them may be more similar to our styles or to what we believe should be correct, in some other cases we have to make an effort to understand some kids’ atittudes and it is essential to develop a plan to help them. There is no other way rather than showing those kids our personal interest in them that will be effective at the moment of creating bonds and strong bonds will be the password to successful learning.
To conclude I would say that as teachers we should get engaged with each and every student , trying to enjoy building and developing relationships with them, this will be the only way to make a difference .
Our students need us and only by seeing them improve, in both academic and emotional aspects ,we will feel we have reached the top of our own success criteria.
