Being an aerospace engineer by education, a physics and mathematics enthusiast at heart, and someone who has worked in various professions, including salesperson, advertising agent, organizer of youth programs, office worker, team coach, simultaneous interpreter, artist, and so on, I never thought about teaching in my youth.
However, once I started, I fell in love with this work. 🙂 Have you ever experienced something similar?
And now, for almost 10 years, I have been teaching. However, I want to honestly share that it is not always easy. Every educator faces their own challenges. I would highlight just a few.
- Very unmotivated students whom parents literally force to study.
- Lack of mutual understanding between me and the parents.
- School-related fears.
- My personal character flaws or fatigue.
The last point could be placed in the first position, as I primarily work on it 🙂 But it is too general. Each of us knows our weaknesses and imperfections, and at the same time, it is precisely these aspects that we can influence and change.
The first three points, however, seem somewhat beyond our control, but we still have to deal with them.
- For example, there was a student who goofed off during the lesson (in person), constantly diverted the topics, only studied when in a good mood, and was a real challenge for me. He would skip classes and later his father would apologize and pay for the missed lesson, even though I refused. The boy was an athlete and mentioned that even in a regular city sports section, everyone was into doping. He always sought easy ways, didn’t put in effort. Every lesson with him was on the edge. We discussed everything with the father, and he understood everything. For me, it was an experiment – “can I handle it?” Overall, I didn’t give him much. Such cases are rare. Sometimes students deceive, Google answers, or come up with other tricks. The main thing here is to be as honest as possible with parents.
- Parents initially ask for one thing, then it turns out they expected something else. For example, in the first meeting, they say everything is fine, following the program is not necessary, just help close gaps if difficulties arise. After a couple of months of seemingly good lessons and confirmation that everything is fine, they refuse and write a review stating that the teacher should have been preparing the child for each subsequent lesson in advance, or something similar. It’s impossible to be overly cautious here. But internally, intuition actually hinted that something was off. It was important, I believe, to frequently cross-check with parents about their expectations.
- School teachers, with all due respect. Many times, students come to the lesson demotivated because they are constantly told: “you’re stupid,” “you’re dumb,” “you embarrass us,” “you’re idiots, and you won’t pass the exam.” I come once a week, and their minds are being washed every day. It’s necessary to calm them down, show the student their talents and resources, and generally understand how life unfolds day by day and where they can support and strengthen themselves.
What are your main challenges? And what ideas do you have regarding these and other difficulties in teaching? Thank you in advance for your answers!
