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Secondary

Teachers Should Play To Their Strengths, But Not Rest On Their Laurels

Play to your strengths by all means, says Tom Starkey – but for goodness' sake make sure you work on your weaknesses, too…

Tom Starkey
by Tom Starkey
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Teaching is a stupidly difficult undertaking, so when you’re doing it, it’s probably a good idea to play to your strengths. There are as many different teaching styles out there as there are teachers, but essentially, working in a way that’s effective and not crushingly grinding is a pretty good option.

Having said that, it can take a while to figure out what those ‘strengths’ are. When you’re first dropped into the classroom (without so much as a fully weaponised exo-suit with shoulder-mounted laser-guided missile, by the way) it often requires all your effort not to run screaming out of the gates, let alone start on a journey of self-discovery during which you identify what precise approach is likely to work for you.

Besides, your head is usually swimming with so much differing advice from all quarters about how you should teach – a thousand books, countless opinions (some of them even from actual people who’ve been in an actual classroom within the past decade) – that sifting through it all and forging your own style is necessarily a slow process.

But, eventually, the pieces begin to fall into place. It starts to become apparent what parts of your personality are a benefit when you’re stood in front of a class. There are things you discover that you have a natural affinity for, and it makes sense to utilise them to enhance your teaching.

For instance, you may have a half decent sense of humour, so you put it to work making the kids laugh and in doing so find that they are more willing to try for you. Or you’re uber-organised, so that organisation manifests itself in plotting and recording (in a fabulous colour coded scheme) the progress of your students – and they respond to this as they are confident in where they are and what they need to do to improve. Or perhaps you’re a little bit scary, so you can scare them into doing what you need them to do.

(That last one’s my personal favourite. That and letting people think I’ve finished talking and then hitting them with a ‘but’ so I can go on another half an hour or so. Everyone loves that.)

Something to fall back on

Teaching is a crazily gruelling undertaking, so when it becomes apparent that there are things in your arsenal that make it easier, parts of your personality that kids respond to, or a way of working that feels natural and makes your day go that bit easier you should use it.

Hang on…

Wait for it…

BUT.

There is a danger that the things we rely upon (our teaching strengths as it were) can become things that we depend upon to the detriment of any other techniques that we could be using, and here’s the big problem with that:

Sometimes the things we rely upon just don’t work.

The funny teacher finds that all of her A-grade material is falling flat with the Y9s and they’re beginning to turn on her. The uber-organiser realises that no matter how many colours he uses, the progress of his ICT group is painfully slow. The scary teacher comes across someone who’s scarier than he is. (They are 12 years old. And there are 32 of them.)

It’s all well and good to play to your strengths – they are something that make up your own individual style and set you apart from every other teacher out there. But you also need something to fall back on when your strengths turn into anything but.

According to the situation, the comedian has to be able to become the badass; the organiser needs to learn to ride the chaos; the fear-monger must break into a smile.

It’s not enough to rest on the laurels of your natural attributes (although they’ll get you through most of the time). You’ve got to spend a little time and effort cultivating the things that aren’t part of your regular repertoire, because there will be times when your natural way of working goes down like a ton of bricks that are then picked up by the kids and thrown at you as a punishment for being rubbish.

Teaching is an insanely punishing undertaking and it’s okay to use the things that you are naturally good at to make you more effective. But every once in a while, it might be an idea to think about trying to improve some of the techniques that wouldn’t be your first choice, or your second. Because it’s unpredictable, this teaching lark – and the more back-up you have, the better.

Thanks for reading.

Tom Starkey is a teacher in an FE college in the north of England; he blogs at stackofmarking.wordpress.com and tweets as @tstarkey1212

This article originally appeared in issue 5.7 of Teach Secondary magazine

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