The Magician, the Cheerleader, the Martyr and 7 others: Which one are you?
‘The man is in the coffin,’ she muttered, staring into space. ‘How do you feel today, Ms. Brown?’ the man asked. ‘The man is in the coffin,’ she replied. ‘What is your name?’ he asked. ‘The man is in the coffin,’ she repeated. ‘Ok. Can you write your name?’ he pressed her. ‘The man is in the coffin,’ she reiterated. Six words. She was left with only six words: ‘The man is in the coffin.’ When commentators are not satisfied with the quality of the work that teachers do in the classroom and the output of the education system generally, they tend to make the mistake of presenting teachers as a homogeneous mass. 'Teachers are not doing a good job,' they say. Or, 'teachers need to take the job of teaching more seriously than they do'. Or, 'teachers are the reason why students perform poorly in school'. The list of criticisms thrown at the teacher is long. What these commentators fail to highlight is the fact that teachers differ in many...