Mistakes: what do mentors say?
Many of the mentors that I worked with had mentored a number of student teachers over many years. At the three times a year mentor meetings, a standard feature of the meetings was for me to ask for feedback on how the students were getting on; had they settled in OK, were they being professional, were they doing the right things, did they seem to be OK? Over the years, a pattern emerged of where sometimes students ‘didn’t quite get it right’ in some respects. The biggest ‘heart-sink’ feedback was where students were not acting professionally in some way, or where they were resistant to taking on board hints, suggestions and advice, and tended to be defensive about the way that they were doing things. When mentors reported these mistakes, it was almost invariably done more in sorrow than in anger. It is a comparatively easy bit of a mentor’s job giving praise and saying how well things are going, it is a much less edifying bit of the mentor’s job to point out where things are going wrong. These are some of the things that emerged as mistakes and misjudgements.
Talking over the pupils: ‘Some of them don’t even seem to make the effort to get them quiet before they start talking, even when it is quite an easy group.’
Not using school and departmental systems: ‘They don’t use the agreed systems which the school has… you would think that anyone new to the school, or a student teacher would be extra keen to stick to the rules and do something reasonable which would fall within the parameters of what other members of staff would do… the norms, but it doesn’t seem to work like that.’
Repeated telling-off (or ‘moaning’): ‘The kids soon work out which student s just make empty threats… “I’m going to tell so and so”, “You will do a detention” or whatever, but nothing ever happens.’
Not reading ‘signals’ from the pupils: ‘A sort of autism… it’s as if they are not receiving and decoding the signals coming in from the pupils. Things just aren’t registering. They are doing things but with no sense of what the effects are… they don’t seem to see that what they are doing is making things worse… or is even causing the problem.’
Leaving action too late: ‘Waiting far too long before taking reasonable and appropriate action. By this stage the lesson is often in chaos, there are lots of kids messing around and belated action comes across to them as arbitrary and unfair.’
Just blaming the pupils (not realising that other teachers/students can get them to behave well): ‘Not considering that it might be you… the task you set… not doing the right things to set up the work.. it might have been a poorly planned lesson. They don’t stop to think that the same class behaves really well for other teachers and think what it might be what other teachers are doing that makes a difference.’
Using disproportionate sanctions: ‘Going straight for the thermo-nuclear option without using a yellow caution card or going through the full range of low key options.’
‘Threatening punishments that are implausible.’
Displaying dislike of pupils: ‘Some of our pupils are not particularly likeable but they mustn’t be treated any differently. You’ve got to be polite and treat them the same as the other pupils even if they are being really exasperating. You mustn’t let your dislike of them show.’
Getting angry, losing composure: ‘You can learn to stay calm even when things get quite torrid. It just doesn’t usually help to shout, get angry or agitated. For some of our pupils, that might be the most enjoyable bit of their day.’
Although there are obviously some occasions when teachers might need to raise their voices in order to make themselves heard and move to a situation where they can talk ‘normally’, there was an almost universal consensus that anger, scorn and shouting were not helpful ways forward and were generally counter productive. Losing your temper’ (or even pretending to lose your temper) was thought to be inadvisable:
‘If you are a teacher, you can’t say “the red mist came over me… I didn’t know what I was doing…” How well will that stand up? You read about things like that in the papers… good teacher, awful pupil, and in a moment, the teacher’s career is jeopardised, the pupil has won. They have nothing much to lose, they love it, they’ve got you in trouble. Think about it…’ (Teacher Educator)
‘There are some student teachers… and teachers… who go in there and wind them up… who can generate a riot out of passive and dispirited kid who were just slumped quietly over their desks.’ (Teacher Educator)
‘You might intimidate some pupils by shouting and getting angry but there are significant numbers of pupils who enjoy the sight of the teacher jumping up and down and getting exasperated. It is probably more interesting than the worksheet or whatever it was that they were doing.’ (Mentor)
‘It was as if he had just come from watching the Professionals or The Sweeney on TV. He thought he could face down the kids by being really up-front aggressive, right in their face, eyeball to eyeball. This might work with some kids, some of them will back down and be intimidated by such an approach but it’s a very high risk strategy. There are some kids in most schools who would rise to this and react in kind, storm out, knock chairs over, tell them to F. off or worse. A strutting macho approach is like a red rag to a bull with some of our pupils.’ (Head of Department)
‘If people go in with an aggressive “I’m not going to stand any nonsense from you lot…”, our kids are very “in your face”… there are lots of them who will take the teacher up on this… it gets them stirred up.’ (Experienced teacher)
‘Some student teachers try talking to them in sergeant major mode, exploding, “You will do this..”, “I’m not having that”. It’s exactly not the way to talk to our kids, it’s like a red rag to a bull, it winds them up, they will make a conscious attempt to behave badly.’ (Head of Department)
‘I did learn that shouting isn’t very effective’ (Teaching Assistant)
- Poor judgement over choices of action
‘Too confrontational or conversely afraid to confront pupils when necessary – not getting the balance right’
‘Saying they will do something and then not doing it.’
‘Dithering – think carefully but then be decisive.’
‘Not developing standard ways of doing things that kids can get used to.’
‘Not being consistent – it’s as important for teachers as it is for referees.’
- Not being professional
‘Not using the official school systems.’
‘Not marking and returning books promptly.’
‘Being over-familiar, trying to be ‘matey’ with pupils. The kids loathe and despise this.’
‘Arriving late for the lesson.’
‘Not getting to know the kids’ names. It makes it so much easier when you do this.’
Some of these things are ‘judgement calls’, and the hope is that student teachers’ ‘percentages’ in making the right call, will improve with experiences. Some of them are just mistakes, and the wrong thing to do whatever the context.
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