floppingplatypus-blog - Tumblr blog

[floppingplatypus-blog]

Authority Bases Reflection

What are the expectations you have on yourself as a teacher? What are the expectations others (you can scope yourself) have of you? How do you negotiate among them if they are different?

I think the expectations that I have on myself and others have on me as a teacher will change over time, and differs depending on who ‘others’ refers to. At this moment, my main expectation of myself as a teacher, is to teach students whom I cross paths with, what it means to be a good human being. That being said, it is a huge, broad, and perhaps almost inconceivable task. I guess at the core of it, it comes down to... values. To be able to teach students what being a good human being entails (at least to me), I will have to act with the values that I think a good human being should have. The expectation I hold myself to, is to be what I say. Values I strongly stand by include: empathy, sensitivity, accountability, resourcefulness, hardiness, integrity, humility, among others. 

I’m not sure what I should include as “others” in this case... But my mentor did share with me that her expectation of me would be to be professional and to put the student at the centre of our teaching and their learning. We are very different individuals with very different interests. However, when it comes to teaching, so long as we are professional, we can have differences in opinions, but we can still talk it out, so long as at the end of the day, our students stand to benefit from our teaching. 

I think one of my philosophies in life with regards to conflicting expectations of me from others, and that from myself, is that I don’t have to live up to everybody’s expectations. Being a people-pleaser is tiring and draining. Personally, a sustainable way of negotiating different expectations is first to know what we expect of ourselves, and hold true and firm to that. Even if we aren’t 100% convinced of our own expectations, I think that is fine, so long as we have some idea. The next step is then to listen to what others expect of us. However, that doesn’t mean that we necessarily have to internalise everybody’s expectations of us. If we think that it is a good expectation to adopt for ourselves, then good. Otherwise, let it go. This is what I would do in light of different expectations. 

What do you think are the authority bases you may use as a beginning teacher and why? How do you predict you may change as you progress in the profession?

I think that as a BT, I will most likely use the referent authority base instinctively. However, I think that this may be a potential pitfall. Students may like me because I can be personable, fun-loving, friendly, but they may mistake me for their friend. The DM of the school at which I was attached to last year said that the students don’t need another friend; the students need a teacher. And that struck a chord with me. In my previous teaching experiences, it was easy to befriend the students, and I think as a result, I had difficulty managing the class. I tried to establish clear lines at my attachment last year. In class, my students were my students — we were there to learn together. Outside of class, we could have fun together through activities such as sports. My FT frequently jio-ed the class out for bonding activities, where I joined in and got to know the students better personally. Now I know that this can be classified as a referent authority base. 

However, I think a good plan to have is to go in first with the legitimate and expert authority bases. This is because we do not really understand the students that well yet, and so the most feasible strategy would be to behave as a teacher should behave, and demonstrate that we know our subject matters. As we get to know our students better, we can then use the referent and reward/coercive authority bases because then we know what our students like/dislike, and where their interests lie. This will help us to on one hand, form more personal and positive relationships with students, and at the same time, when they have done something wrong that warrants a negative consequence (read: punishment), they will tend to accept it more when we mete out the consequences for poor behaviour.

Over time, I think that a proficient teacher will be able to weave between referent, expert, legitimate, and reward/coercive authority bases depending on the context and the profile of students. 

Ultimately, I think we need to listen and respond to our students. Our students all come with a variety of baggages that influence the way they behave in class, as seen from the video clip. How they respond to us also determines how we should/could respond to them.