Challenges Teachers Face

Teaching is probably one of the most demanding jobs because it comes with an immense responsibility of nurturing the next generation. Teachers are only second to parents when it comes to educating kids and inculcating in them important life skills. We look to teachers to provide moral support for students suffering from various types of medical condition or physical disabilities. We also expect teachers to protect kids from being destructive to themselves and their peers by preventing them from getting involved in drugs and violence.

Over time, a teacher’s role who has morphed into a myriad of things. Teachers are expected to wear many hats while being effective in all of them. We seldom think about the difficulties involved in teaching, not least of which is lack of funding for basic classroom needs. URstore works closely with many schools and provides custom clothing for various causes as well as sports gear for teams. We deal with teachers first-hand and facilitate fundraising by giving a ten per cent kickback on all merchandise sold on their online URstore page.

Here are some challenges faced by teachers across our country today that are not related to finances.

1. Lack of parental support
In a lot of areas, parents have more say what kids can and can’t do. Starting from what time they have to go to bed at to whether or not they can have a cellphone and everything in between. It is up to parents to inculcate respect for teachers within their kids. And in general also, if parents create a healthy environment in the home, kids will have prospects at learning in school. A broken home gives rise children that have difficulty concentrating in class and will have many behavioral issues as well.

2. Varying levels of students’ skills
Not every student is alike and each one of them has varying needs and skill levels. As classroom sizes continue to grow, it becomes even more tough to give one-on-one attention to students. Teachers often feel helpless when they’re forced to adopt a cookie-cutter approach to teaching due to time constraints.

3. Student behavior
The list of students’ behavioral issues can go on and on. Some kids have issues to attention, others have clinically diagnosed learning disabilities. But these are not behavioral issues, these are just challenges that teachers have to be smart about handling. But what happens when a student is not willing to learn or do homework or pay attention. What if a bunch of students group against the teacher and create an atmosphere of rebellion inside the classroom?

4. Issues that come with today’s technology
Cellphones are a big nuisance when it comes to student concentration in class. For teachers, cellphones pose a more serious issue because it opens doors for cheating during assessment. Cellphones are portable and has a lot of features that are problematic – one such issue being access to social media. Problems with cyberbullying has become rampant and widespread access to smartphones only exacerbates this epidemic. Of course, there are many other issues that come with technology. A lot of learning today is based on digital content yet it would be naïve to expect all students to have the same access to computers outside the school. This creates a dilemma for teachers whether they should promote digital learning or accommodate students that come from less privileged families and rely on traditional methods of pen, paper and books.

5. Issues with assessment and grading
As pedagogy embraces latest research on cognitive psychology, teachers are left wondering whether dated methods of assessment are a good litmus test for students’ learning. Does it make sense to expect a student with a reading disability to take the same test as kids with no such impediment?