The ghosts of teachers past : finding one’s voice as a teacher

Abstract

Do teachers really only teach the way they were taught? Perhaps not, according to various sources detailed in this article which challenge this maxim. But it’s certainly true that as teachers find their own voice, they are more likely to derive satisfaction from their career. At the NILE@21 conference, Rod Bolitho’s plenary focused on the transitions in the life of a teacher. He explained that teachers go through a number of transitions in their career and some of these are quite difficult to negotiate, especially at the beginning. Building on White’s (2008) article on teachers’ professional life cycles, Bolitho claimed that one of the main challenges for novice teachers is that of discovering ways of not remaining bound to how they were taught when they themselves were students. Shaking off the influence of one’s own teachers might not be a priority for those new to the profession, preoccupied as they are with surviving the classroom; however, the sooner they find their voice as teachers the more likely it is that they will derive satisfaction from their career. Teacher education and the educational climate in general need to facilitate this process by providing novice teachers with the means for them to discover their voice.