Kate Hawkesby: Good teachers are worth their weight in gold

As the school year starts, I am reminded of the beauty of great teachers.  Having had five kids through four different schools, we’ve seen the full gamut of teachers – bad, sad, grumpy, useless, brilliant, engaged, interesting, and inspiring. If you’ve got kids in school, you’ll know what I mean.  Every year, your child desperately hopes for good teachers and every year you end up hoping for that too because it makes such a difference to your child’s year and their learning.  This year my daughter, who is in high school, had a lot of new teachers starting. Many of them young, one even younger than her older brother, fresh faces from Teachers College, ones who have switched from other careers, ones who have been away travelling and returned. But she’s lucked out. Every single one of her teachers is a winner, and it’s already making such a difference to the start of her year. She’s excited to get to school, excited when she gets home from school. Excited for the year ahead. Which makes the whole experience so much better for everyone.  I was asking on the way home from school yesterday about what makes these teachers so good. Being young obviously helps she said, because they’re not jaded yet, they’re not so traditional and rule bound, they’re more modern and fun. They’re starting out and they want to have a good experience too. The other thing she said is the organized ones are great because they’re so onto it classes run smoothly, everyone knows what’s expected of them and where they stand. Work is laid out and easily understood.  The other thing she mentioned was the personalization – the ones who bother getting to know the students on a personal level. One gave her a birthday card because she noted my daughter’s birthday was just before school went back. Totally unnecessary but very sweet and thoughtful. This isn't a private school by the way either. Another teacher paused class to have a ‘get to know you session’ and she kicked it off by giving info on herself first, so the girls all felt they knew a bit more about her. Which is definitely a very modern thing because I remember being at school and you didn’t know a thing about your teacher’s personal life or if they were married or had kids or not, and you dare not ask either.  But these days it’s not unusual for teachers to have pictures of their family on their desk, point out their kids’ names and ages and give little tidbits of personal stories. So it’s fascinating to see how teaching is evolving and changing – many times for the better.  It's a good reminder that among the teacher shortage and the woes at the Ministry of Education and all the dramas around NCEA and curriculums and absenteeism that at the heart of all this are clutches of really hard working, keen and enthusiastic teachers, doing an amazing job to keep kids engaged. And it’s teachers like that we owe a debt of gratitude, because despite it all, they push on – and with a smile on their face.  And given the disruption of the past few years for our kids in school, I reckon those teachers are worth their weight in gold.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.