The government never seems to run out of new and complex initiatives to improve the education system. Children think it’s a lot simpler than that – find some more teachers who really enjoy what they’re doing. Children’s Express reports.
| I haven’t found a student yet who, when I really reach out and make contact, hasn’t been prepared to do the work. |
“If they don’t love kids then they have to get out of the job.”
So says Roger Vavrecka, head of PE at Estover Community College in Plymouth. He has a right to speak his mind – last year he won the Teaching Award for Lifetime Achievement in the South West.
Meeting him you know straight away there’s something special about him. Few teachers we know are as enthusiastic, or so obviously “in it for the kids.”
He believes in taking an interest in his pupils. “There’s a lot more to pupils’ lives than school, and very often if they don’t want to work there are sound reasons,” he says. “I have to find out why if I can – what’s going on.”
“I try to build a trust with them. To be honest, I haven’t found a student yet who, when I really reach out and make contact with them, hasn’t been prepared to do the work.”
But there are some teachers who children just don’t want to do the work for. Usually they’re the ones who shout a lot.
Kieran, a year 10 pupil, said his favourite teacher “listens to students – listens to what they have to say and helps them out.”
Mr Vavrecka thinks yelling at children frightens them instead of inspiring them. He says shouting is a poor substitute for a more important quality. “I’ve known an awful lot of teachers in 28 years, and the good ones I respect – who I know the students respect – are strong people. Strength, and that firmness of the teachers saying ‘no, I’m not having that, this isn’t going to happen in my classroom,’ is an important quality of a teacher.”
But as well as strength, children prefer learning with teachers they can share a laugh with. Stephen’s favourite teacher doesn’t make his pupils work so hard, but “you can have fun with him, and a joke.” Some teachers can’t pull this off, however. One “tries to be funny, but he’s not funny.”
“She jokes and has a laugh while she teaches you,” says Clare, 13, of her favourite teacher. She says the jokes help keep the class more interested in what she is teaching.
Nathan Hayes, a new science teacher at Plymstock school, is a fan of fun and humour in the classroom. “The best way to motivate children is to have fun, try and empathise with them – be friends with them.”
Mr Hayes was a professional basketball player before he started teacher training, and he brings lots of energy into the classroom: “I try and get pupils moving around. For example, I’m doing particles in soluble gases at the moment, and I have them running around the classroom acting like idiots. But they actually learn about the movement of molecules better than when I was explaining it on the board.”
Like Mr Vavrecka, he doesn’t like shouting: “Children don’t respect you as much if you are shouting and calling their name out. A raised, firm voice, yes – but screaming and shouting at the top of your lungs is never good.
Mr Vavrecka also likes humour, but doesn’t worry about cracking jokes. His approach is more subtle – he says if teachers don’t love working with kids, “that pleasure, that charisma, won’t come over – what will come over is the opposite.”
Talking to pupils and teachers, it seems pretty obvious what school children most appreciate: teachers who have a genuine interest in them; teachers who talk to, and listen to, each of their individual pupils; teachers who take time to help individual struggling students; basically teachers who love what they’re doing.
There are some great teachers out there, like Mr Vavrecka and Mr Hayes, who are inspiring us to grow and learn. But not all teachers are like that. What school children are saying to teachers is: if you don’t like us then leave us, because at the end of the day it’s our education that’s being affected.
About the team
This story was produced by Vicky Palmer, James Watkins, Susan Parnell and Ben Wildman, 13. It was published in the Plymouth Evening Herald.
