The Long Way of a Young Teacher

Let’s imagine the following situation: the last bell rings for a future teacher, and everything turns upside down for him. Just yesterday he was a common careless student and in a moment he becomes a young specialist, a prospective teacher. And now he himself should pass on the torch to an army of children. Just yesterday he was like one of them, and now he is in the teachers’ shoes. What is waiting for him? A thousand days of joy and pleasure or a thousand years of penal servitude?

So full of new ideas, books and dictionaries – he comes to school. He plans to be a new Makarenko, to be a productive teacher and a good friend to children. He eagerly desires children’s love and respect. He imagines himself in front of an enthusiastic audience, saying something enormously interesting, totally controlling the children’s attention, using all the advanced methods of teaching. Everybody admires his striking skills wondering how he can be so talented and so young at the same time. He dreams about public acknowledgement!

But unfortunately he – like a horse in the races – should overcome many obstacles first. For example, a low salary, bad equipment in classes, an inconvenient time-table, and unfriendly treatment from other teachers. All these factors certainly disappoint a new teacher, but not so much as the realization that his dreams have practically nothing in common with the cruel reality. He begins to realize the fact that his theoretical knowledge sometimes contradicts practice. Not all the good thoughts from books work well in the classroom. And only a tiny part of them hold true completely.

But then he comes up against a greater obstacle: it is the children themselves! A young teacher dreams about the classes full of opening minds. He hopes that he will work with the children who, firstly, know his subject well enough and, secondly, who are interested in learning it. But, in practice a poor young teacher discovers that the number of children of his precious dream is really very small. One part of the class is just simply not interested in the subject, considering it useless for their future life, another – just can’t understand, cope with it. And, in fact, only two or three pupils work properly during the lessons.

It is a real shock for him, which ruins all his ideals about his work. And what happens to a young teacher in such a situation? Some of them become disillusioned, realize that this occupation is not their vocation and decide to cast their lot with some other profession. They feel eternal emptiness inside and regret the sleepless nights spent over books. Others turn into cynical creatures with a pointer in their hands and a “bun” on their heads. They prefer to solve some other problems than inspire pupils to get some knowledge.

But there still remain some enthusiasts, defenders of the ideal conception of schooling, who don’t stop trying to fulfil their plans. They are a real find for both school and pupils. But after years of disappointments, the population of such unique teachers diminishes. And if you had such a teacher in your life, you may think that you are really lucky, because you have seen a real teacher, a professional in his sphere. So just thank him for the years of his hard work, for the devotion to his vocation, his school and to his pupils, because, in spite of all the difficulties, he is still some kind of eternal sunshine of the spotless mind. He is just a dreamer who tries to make our life more colourful, sensible and interesting.