ED4236 - Assignment One

I must confess that when I was a student I was probably the student who asked “why bother?”. I didn’t hate my teachers or feel compelled to rebel against their authority but I never bothered with anything. I consider it a profound fact that now I am being called on to answer the question. Before giving an answer to the student who has asked this question I think it is important that I have reflected on my own experiences and see if in fact I do bother.

The question, I feel, is less about education or history and more about life in general. When the classroom is messy, it’s an afternoon class and it has rained all day the simplistic notion that everybody should want to learn just doesn’t add up. A student wants to learn for their enjoyment of the subject but in such terrible circumstances there can be little prospect of “enjoyment” of teaching and learning.


I arrived at the decision to do teaching a little while after I had finished my first degree and only as I was approaching the end of my second degree. It seems to me now that the time spent wondering which career to take up was fruitful. I come from a family of secondary school teachers and my initial hesitation (and perhaps refusal) to teach was caused by my own non-acceptance of education and learning. As a student I could never accept my position which involved going to classes when everything seems hopeless and completing assignment when I wasn’t interested in the topic. An important concept I have realized is that these impossible classes for both teacher and student are not an abnormality to be shunned but rather they are the very reality of educational life.

Fortunately these questions have been studied and the professional experience of many teachers has been used to understand the situation and determine a solution. One useful text written on the topic is entitled “You Know The Fair Rule! And much more” by Bill Rogers. Chapter 7 of this text deals with the question of the harder than usual class. According to the author one of the contributing factors is the attitude of the teacher. Rogers states: “If a teacher has a negative attitude at the outset, expressed in blame, frequent nagging and criticism, students will often team up psychologically to ‘pay the teacher back’”. As a trainee teacher it is encouraging to see this fact put in writing but it is also something I have had to reflect on personally for some time: if as a student I could not accept having to participate in such a class than as a teacher how can I participate now?

I think it’s easy for any person looking to become a teacher to have visions of smiling classrooms where an intellectual passion is passed from one person to another just as a stimulating conversation at a sophisticated dinner party can keep two people enthralled for hours. The smelly, messy classroom on a long wet day is the furthest from the dinner party setting that any teacher can get. The pleasantness of each other’s company, the admiration for the teacher’s knowledge and of course the smiling faces have all disappeared. In this context a student might ask “why bother?”.

This was surely the problem addressed in the film Mr Holland’s Opus. Mr Holland was a hopeful composer who took a job as a teacher in order to provide a temporary income for his family while he put his plans on hold. When I watched the film I was certainly impressed with the main character’s ability to suffer. I consider this to be the fundamental skill acquired during someone’s personal growth: the ability to do what we really don’t want to do. In the film Mr Holland discovers a surprising joy in the difficult circumstances of his teaching. His passion for music does in fact pass on to his students and the difficulties only serve to illuminate more clearly how much Mr Holland cares for his music and his students.

In the classroom setting giving the students a lecture about the themes in Mr Hollands Opus is certainly not possible but no lecture is necessary when actions can speak so much louder than words. If asked this question by a student under these circumstances I hope that my response would be to continue teaching and let my determination in the face adversity be the response.

One reason why I had been hesitant to launch into teaching immediately as I finished my bachelor’s degree is that I like science and mathematics but had no particular fondness for the context of schools. An interesting text which was loaned to me by a more experience teacher as I pondered my vocation addressed the fundamental student-teacher problem: “Students, regardless of their class, race or gender express a belief in the utility of education for pursuing their goals in life. However this belief does not necessarily coincide with acceptance of the form schooling takes.” This text was called “Secondary Schooling in a Changing World”. As I delved further into the book and discovered the wealth of research already done on the topic of education I came to perceive a surprising parallel between the vocation of the teacher and the vocation of a student: both see the utility of education but cannot always accept its context. As has been stated education does not happen in a vacuum. No person acquires or dispenses knowledge without a social context in which to do so.

I am pleased in the end to have spent a few years of my adult life not sure of my vocation because it has allowed me the opportunity to reconcile with my adolescent vocation as a student. Now I know that school and education is about so much more than knowing more after class than before. It is about acceptance of a person’s individual situation in a broader social context. If I could speak to my younger self I would like to advise him to get out his books, pay attention to the teacher and make notes on everything that gets said and if I had the option to choose the moment at which I appear to my younger self I would choose a moment like in the question. I would appear to myself at the end of a long wet day in smelly classroom. I would choose the most painful and drawn out moment at the very end of the term. I would go to myself and say “Get out your books, pay attention, take notes. If you can bring yourself to accept this moment in life then you will learn so much more than history, you will learn about life itself.” Unfortunately I won’t have the opportunity to appear to my younger self but when I gain the opportunity to be a teacher I will certainly give this response to the student that asks “why bother?”.

If the student doesn’t listen or if it is not appropriate in that moment to be drawn into a discussion about the merits of education then I hope my action will speak louder than words and student will know the answer form observation.

Herek, S. (Director), and Duncan, S.D. (Writer). (1995) Mr Holland's Opus [ Motion Picture]United States:MGM

Rogers, B (2003) ‘You Know The Fair Rule’ and much more: strategies for making the hard job of discipline and behaviour management in school easier. Acer Press: Melbourne

Groundwater-Smith, S., Brennan, M., McFadden, M. and Mitchell J. Secondary Schooling in a Changing World (2001) Harcourt:Sydney

First Entry

Hi, this is my first entry. As the name of my suggests this is all about becoming a great teacher. Not a good teacher or a reasonable teacher but a GREAT teacher.