As a profession, we care deeply about the next generation of teachers. We know there are issues in attracting and retaining the very best people to teach Scotland’s young people.
In reflecting on how we might make teaching a sustainable career choice, do we really consider the complexity and challenges that exist in the Professional Graduate Diploma in Education (PGDE) year - the main postgraduate route into teaching in Scotland - and how to best support these new teachers?
We were both coming to the end of our first year in positions running the physics and English PGDE courses at Edinburgh Napier University (ENU) and were considering how the year had gone, and what changes we might want to make for the next year. We wanted any changes to be informed ones, so we thought carefully about what would give us a window into how our student teachers have found their experiences of learning to teach.
The task
We wanted our students to end the course with a space for reflection. To have an activity to consider, “What kind of teacher do I want to be?” This was about giving our students a chance to pause at the end of an intense year. To pause and crystallise their sense of who they are as a teacher. To be able to carry that crystallisation over the summer and into the start of their probationary year.
We, slightly nervously, invited them to do this by writing a poem.
We thought poetry offered an immediacy and could be messy and fragmented - freed from the constraints of writing prose. We assured them this was about reflection, not about the quality of the poetry. We scaffolded the workshop to lead them step by step into the actual writing.
And they wrote - with a beauty and an authenticity that we hadn’t been prepared for. But what did their writing tell us?
Themes
There was a lot written about self-doubt and a sense of imposter syndrome: “The people around me seem so sure, but not me”; “Am I good enough?”; “Have I made a mistake?” There were recurring words like “worried”, “anxious”, “stressed”.
One poem illustrated the rollercoaster of emotions: “I start placement 2… What if placement 1 was a fluke?” This was a reminder to us as tutors that even when things appear to be going well to an observer, self-belief is often fragile.
Why so much anxiety? I think it is hard, if not impossible, to truly understand the nature of the job until you are standing in the classroom as the teacher. “Who knew that teaching required so much time; that teachers don’t just walk in a room and teach?”
At ENU, we are clear about communicating how brilliant a job teaching is to our students. But perhaps we need to find a way to talk about how it’s a challenging job; that learning to do it, and to do it well, takes time and struggle. That feeling that struggle is natural, perhaps necessary. How can we be open and explicit about the realities of placement without instilling unhelpful levels of angst?
Linked to that was a theme around developing a “teacher persona”. Some of this was about not bringing whatever is happening away from school into the classroom: “Put on a happy face regardless of what’s happening at home”; “Nice even if cries inside.” How can we help our students with the skill of being the adult in the room, always, while also being able to communicate to a mentor or a peer when things are particularly tough?
Related to that were strands around what kind of teacher students want to be, particularly in relation to relationships and classroom management: “Working on the firm but definitely fair”; “I would like to be kind but strict.” Teaching is very personal and navigating the development of your own teacher persona isn’t always straightforward. Could we help more with this? To allow individuals to work out how they will enact “firm but fair” in a way that is right for them?
And lastly, totally unsurprisingly, there was a clear strand around workload: “The workload is too large to mention.” There were several references to not just workload, but the process of learning how to set boundaries: “New rule - know when to switch off the laptop”; “You know now that you can have a life.”
Again, this is something we talk to students about in the abstract - the importance of not being consumed by the job, of finding an identity away from “being a teacher” - but perhaps we need to find space for students to work out what that looks like for them. Again, this will be very personal.
Implications for schools
One profound takeaway from this activity for us has been about just how complex the inner world of a student teacher is, that we can never assume anything when working with them. That is why the relationships that student-teachers have with their schools and mentors during their placements are vital to their success.
We have been fortunate to work with some brilliant mentors this year, who have provided their mentees with a need that seems to leap out of the students’ poems: time and compassion. The student teachers who have felt they have had such support, have been fuelled with the ability to manage the inevitable ups and downs of a PGDE year.
Finding that time to listen without judgement, to nurture and to encourage can, of course, be challenging. The future of our profession, and of our young people’s experiences in classrooms, however, demands that we continue to make it a priority.
Dr Heather Earnshaw and Jamie Thom are teacher education lecturers at Edinburgh Napier University
