The Master Teacher

By: Sara

A couple years ago, a professor told me the most profound insight into teaching which changed the way I looked at the profession. She said that teaching is like an apprenticeship, you begin under the guidance of what should ideally be a master teacher and most importantly of all everyone begins as a novice. Those last words were words which have kept me, as a student teacher on the verge of becoming a fully qualified teacher, sane.

There is no doubt that teaching is one of the most demanding professions around. If you were to put it into terms of a business, a teacher plays multiple roles as manager with day-to-day classroom management, the administration in dealing with paperwork for grading and tracking student performance, public relations with students' parents, and human resources in teaching students. It is my own opinion that no amount of schooling can possibly prepare one for the roles a single teacher needs to fill in the classroom. The master teacher is one who has found a balance between all these roles to the point where he or she no longer needs to consciously think about it as a novice would. Instead, everything is second-nature: the curriculum is known by heart and can be flexible under any circumstance, assessment can be achieved almost at a glance, and management fails to fluster the master teacher. And I'm sure students are keenly aware as to which of their teachers were master teachers, which were still progressing, and worse, which had stagnated toward that level of mastery in teaching.

I had built up in my mind that I had to leave college at that master level; however, my professor helped me to realize that this was an unrealistic expectation to have which only brought about stress. Teaching is a profession built upon experience, and there is a sharp learning curve to it. Sure, some will reach that mastery level faster than others but everyone must go through the novice stage. Teachers are constantly learning something new to their profession, be it a new form of management or a new method of teaching. I guess what this all means in the end, is that for a novice, while it is good to set high expectations, there is a difference between high and unrealistic. Embrace failure since it will happen and learn from it. Then cherish the success and learn from those as well.