My Teacher was a Dragon

She breathed fire on my ineptitude

I had the most awful maths teacher. She was an absolute dragon and took pleasure in intimidating me.

She breathed fire on my ineptitude and her anger burnt through the timid offerings of my workbook.

She wielded her pen like a cutlass and my handwriting bore the scars of her ire for many years. If intimidation was her purpose, she succeeded pretty well because I had a fear of maths ever since.

She was every pupil’s nightmare and I retell this with satisfaction because decades later I still feel relief at being out of her clutches!

That period in my life made me realize how important and at the same time how difficult teaching can be as a profession.

The art of communicating

Because let’s face it - teaching should be about communicating which in itself can be very challenging.

Of course the real million dollar secret is knowing how to communicate effectively with each student individually.

So the question is – how can teachers make a better job of engaging with their students on a meaningful level? And in particular, how do they get to know the individual needs of their students?

Teachers often have classes of 30 children and more, so it’s unreasonable to expect them to get to know each student individually.

Another perspective

Years ago, as a young inspired teacher I badly wanted to gain the level of trust and understanding of my pupils.

Unlike my dragon teacher I knew I would have to find a creative way to get to understand each child on an individual basis.

But nothing was forthcoming.

And then out of the blue and without warning I had a very strange wakeup call.

It was something that I would never forget.