EDD 5319 Personal Growth of Teacher
Lecturer：Lau S. Y. Patrick
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
To be your
Self, to be Success
The Importance of teacher’s self and ways to enhance the teacher’s
self esteem.
Chuk Kwan, Leung 02007090
Teaching is exhausting and exhilarating,
students are always annoying, but just cannot sitting still and listening. Therefore
teaching career is rather tough, good teachers are a rare and dedicates group,
and should be nurtured and valued because of their value to the society and
civilization. In order to do well, teachers should first protect their “Self”,
so that they can produce health students.
Importance of
teacher’s self in a teacher’s career life
Why it is so important for teacher to
declare the Self? A healthy Self-concept can strengthen the teacher both
physically and mentally. Educational environment can become incompatible with
the goals of education, and teachers can be prevented from giving their gifts
of leaving and compassion by a frightening matrix of competing social and
professional agendas. Careers may be ruined because of innocent missteps in
efforts to fulfill their perceived obligations as teachers.
Actually, there are 3 facets of “Self”, and
these self-perceptions form the basis of how a person judge who he or she is. (Bettie,
1992)
Actual self is a
composite picture of how successful you feel in each of your many roles as
educator, friend, son, daughter, brother, sister, mother, father, painter,
renter, owner and so on. The picture is based on your perception of how you’re
doing in each of these roles, and how you are greeted in each of them in
return,
The ideal self is
made up of your aspirations. It is the ideal of how you would like to be and
who you want to become- the striving.
The public self
is the slice you are willing to show to others. It’s the image you want these
others to see. You can decide what this picture will be, or you can allow it to
be influenced by what you think others want you to be (spirited, the faculty
clown, the scapegoat).
The “Self” discussed here refers to the Self
which is a result of the balance of the 3 aspects. The actual Self for teachers
is usually ignored, but the public self is always over-emphasized. There is a
public consensus of how a teacher should be. In whatever aspects, dressing
code, teaching style, even the private life of teacher should be strictly
supervised.
Besides, education seems to have become a
game of political compromise, teachers have to
implement public policies that have little to do with the professional intelligence.
Teachers must confront issues and manage classrooms. There are too many
expectations from the others, it is these expectations to create the actual
self, the role as a teacher, and a teacher needs to accept being what others
want a teacher will be, thus create the public self. But this Self may not
agree with the personality deep inside.
Another conflict may arise from between
the ideal Self and the actual Self. People search for heroes and desire to
approach perfection. People have expectation toward how they are doing, or what
they are going to do. An enthusiastic teacher should have a deeper desire to
improve. They would like to make improvements and want to do the best not only
for themselves, but also for the students. It is these expectations create the
ideal self. However, people do have their own limitations. Teachers are people
too, and come in all shapes and sizes. Such limitations may exist physically or
mentally. Sometimes it is the problem of capability, but people tend to ignore it
and just try all the best in approaching perfection. But this would certainly
cause failure and creates stress, and discourages working attitude.
When these Selfs
are out of balance, stress may be formed inside the person. Such stresses may
externalize and reveal in our daily behaviour. When
great discrepancies exist in the overall balance, the stress experienced can be
enormous. When your life is mainly lived out projecting only the public self,
for example, you can easily lose sight of how the other areas serve to keep you
safe. Feeling helpless, and this can cause tragedies.
The collapse of these three aspects of Self, may damages the 3 components of self-concept, namely
general self-concept, pedagogical self-concept and social self-concept. In
general, the 3 components of self-concept are weak for
This collapse becomes magnified in the
lives of teachers with higher positions. It is because of differentiated expectations
from different parties, like the principle, parents, students and the public. These
expectations are different in nature and sometimes contradict. Please everyone
is impossible, but the contradiction exists to create stresses, which is too
stressful that one may not be able to withstand. Therefore, it is important
that your picture of yourself in each of these three areas be in perspective.
If the Self is exposed, it will
suffer from challenges and may wilt easily. However, the nature of the
perceived Self is dominated by a high degree of stability, which is resisted to
change, and only accept experiences that are consistent with the self concepts.
Teachers with a healthy and strong self may not be easily affected by the harsh
nature of the teaching career.
Teachers need to deal with numerous students;
these individuals may be naughty, demanding, immoral…all the misbehaviours may directly attack the teacher’s self-image.
Therefore, teachers must first safeguard themselves, in some instance,
reprogram themselves with new behaviour, new
responses to their perception of student’s needs.
It should be noted that the reprogramming
does not mean to destroy the Self. People only accept changes
that is consistent with the self concept in order to protect the self
concept and maintain the self picture. When the three aspects of the self are
out of balance, the teacher may feels worthless. When this feeling rises, the
teaching career would properly be ruined as teachers need to feel that they
make a difference. Good teachers have a deep desire to help and lead others,
and to serve. They need to know that they are doing something very special.
Ways in
enhancing self esteem
On the other hand, the Self can be
strengthened by the raise of self-esteem. It helps to form a base of
confidence, inspiration and strength of character in order to make a teacher to
take extraordinary challenges.
Self-esteem is self-regard, that is, the
value you assign to your personhood and is a composite value of self value. In
fact, all individuals need a positive sense of self-worth, especially for
teachers.
According to Bettie, (1992), there are 6
facets of self-esteem, listed below.
1.
Physical safety, which is the
freedom from physical harm.
2.
Emotional security, which is
the absence of intimidations and fears.
3.
Identity, which reveals as the “Who
am I?” question.
4.
Affiliation, which is a sense
of belonging.
5.
Competence, which is the
capability one feels.
6.
These six facets are interrelated but physical
safety is the most basic of needs according to Maslow’s
hierarchy, (1962). It includes the perceived psychological safety and the
physical health condition. There are obvious ways to enhance the latter. For
the former one, the most insecure feeling for a teacher is most likely raised
from the uncooperative students, parents, peers, supervisors, or even the
Principal.
Students are growing under the influence
of post-modernities, which possess a great difference
from the teacher’s thinking. Compromise
with the student to come to a both agreed class rule can smooth class teaching.
At the beginning of the term, a teacher
should alert parents, as well as student to classroom rules and procedures.
If possible, parent programs should be
provided as this may enhance the communication between the parents and the
teachers. Co-working between the two can discipline students more effectively.
Also, during the teaching, teachers should
show their respect to the students,
as respect is the basis of all relationships, students
need respect from teachers too. People feel secure when everything is under
control. If a harmonious relation can be developed, and we are respect to each
other, we are not likely to experience disciplinary problems. This would also
enhance the teacher’s competence.
In addition, knowing how to teach is not
enough, even subject knowledge is not enough, competence is not only composed
of these but why to teach. It is the educational philosophy of the teacher. “What
is education for?”, “What should the school accept responsibility for?”, these questions help us to discover our philosophical attitude. Both implicit and explicit curriculums should be offered in a teacher’s
career. Subject knowledge is only for judging the student’s academic
development, but not the personality development. The latter is becoming more
important in school teaching, as information can now be easily attached, but
the spiritual growth can only be developed with positive encouragement.
If a teacher fails to maintain the
physical security and feel worthless, emotional security or fears resulted. Student
love to hurt teachers they dislike, by languages, behaviours
or whatever. However, teachers can rephrase
what the student said and develop a
positive inner language. Teachers should reinforce positive statements and acknowledge the new one.
Emotional insecurity is also induced by
failed expectation. Students learn at different rates, slow learners do exist,
it is not related to inefficient teaching. Good teachers are convinced that all students can learn;
they need to feel they make a difference, but this may not necessarily be the
academic one. Students with positive personal growth can be a success of
teacher too.
Dealing with students, although is
complex, dealing with conflicting educational philosophies and values would be even
more complex. Teachers may experience the inner conflict of trying to balance
their personal beliefs with the socially accepted norms parents expect teachers
to epitomize, coupled with the fear of teaching either too quizotic
or too pragmatic guidelines.
When these conflicts occur, feeling of worthless
and helpless may arise. This endangers the teacher’s Self and creates the
Identity Crisis. This would be magnifies when you can’t gain a sense of
belonging from the peer or from the school environment. People need to feel not
only connected with others, but also belonged and accepted. Feeling acceptance contributes to a
positive sense of self. (Bettie, 1992)
Expand the social
network and cultivate a professional support system with the frequent use of “WE” language is
not easy for most of the
The last but not the least facet is
mission, that is, the sense of feeling purposeful. Good teachers need to have in mind specific goals or
intentions of what they want to do and be. This is the vision, because of
this exists, there is a direction. Teachers with mission never lose. The mission
can also be the motivation for teachers, when the motivation maximizes,
performance also maximizes. This becomes the competence.
Therefore, teachers need to set goals. We
should also bear in mind that people do have limitation, thus we should
discover our limitations and set an attainable
goal. If the goal is too difficult that is almost certainly will not
achieve, it is unlikely for a person to begin and complete. However, the goal should also be a challenging one.
Besides, the goal is not static. We should have
reflection, and allow periodic
self-renewal, revision and change.
All in all, study other teachers would be effective to make a teacher to alert
what he or she has overlooked.
To conclude, Self concept is the organized, consistent conceptual gestalt composed
of perceptions of the characteristics of the “I” or “me” to others and to
various aspects of life, together with the values attached to these perceptions.
(
References
1.
Bettie B. Youngs, 1992. Enhancing the Educator’s Self-Esteem. Jalmar Press.
2.
Felicity
3.
Sing Lau, 1996. Growing up
the Chinese way.
4.
Alice Healy Sesno, 1998. 97 savvy secrets for protecting self and
school, a practical guide for today’s Tacher and
Administrators,
5.
普通心理學，Chapter 13: Social Development，http://140.123.185.50/generalpsy/outline.htm
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~