Teaching as a profession provides a great sense of achievement and personal satisfaction. However, the job of a teacher is not always a bed of roses. Like any other profession, teaching has its own set of challenges, and managing a classroom can be an overwhelming experience, especially for inexperienced educators. Every classroom is different and a good teacher is always ready to tackle any challenge that he might face. However, there are some pretty common challenges which most teachers invariably face in the classroom, during their teaching careers. It shall prove immensely helpful for the young and inexperienced teachers out there to be aware of the most common classroom challenges for teachers, so that they are not out of their depth when faced with similar situations in their classroom, and know how to tackle those challenges successfully. In this article, we discuss some of the most common challenges faced by teachers in their classrooms. So, without further ado, let us begin.
An abundance of Responsibilities and Paperwork-
At schools, teachers need to prepare their teaching material, lesson plans, evaluate students’ notebooks, and so on. Add to this, other responsibilities such as maintaining the attendance register, being a class teacher, house in charge, etc. and they have a lot on their plate. With the rise of online teaching today, many essential functions of teaching have been automated so that the teacher can focus on what is most important, teaching. Some of the online classes apps provide features like digital whiteboards, online teaching through mobile, automated attendance, automated fee collection system, and even the facility to teach in low data consumption mode. Overburdening teachers can seriously hamper their productivity and may even lead to burnout. Therefore, a teacher must know how to effectively manage his time and prioritize more important and urgent tasks over other tasks. At the same time, he must not shy away from expressing his discomfort with the amount of workload delegated to him by the school administration if he believes it’s taking a toll on his performance or well-being.
The need for Personalized Attention-
Each student is unique and has different learning needs. In order to achieve an enhanced student learning outcome, a teacher needs to be able to provide personalized attention to each student and cater to his unique learning needs. Coupled with all the other responsibilities of a teacher, it can be a daunting task to create course material to achieve an equilibrium between the diverse learning needs of the classroom. This is where teacher app can be useful for educators as online teaching provides the flexibility for teachers to use a variety of mediums while creating their lessons that cater to the needs of different types of learners.
Maintaining Discipline-
There are some students in each classroom who are undisciplined. The students can sometimes be outright disrespectful towards the teachers. Punishing them is seldom successful, as there is a limit to what a teacher can do and students may grow to resent you even more. As a teacher, your first reaction should always be towards developing effective communication and encouraging friendly and open interaction with the students. If the indiscipline still persists, you should inform the school administration about the same and also seek inputs from the parents of the students responsible.
Lack of Support from Guardians-
Parents are the first teachers of a child. A teacher can only go so far in developing students into well-rounded and knowledgeable individuals. Parental support is equally, if not more important for students to benefit from their learning in the classroom. Therefore, parents should work in coordination with teachers to ensure the success of their children. However, the reality is often farther from this. Some parents think that getting their kid admitted to a good school means the end of their responsibility towards his education. When parents step away from their responsibilities, student learning outcomes are bound to take a dip. To be honest, it’s a little harsh on a teacher to be expected to ensure the excellent performance of each student in his classroom if their parents aren’t ready to devote some time towards the same.
These are some of the most common challenges which teachers face in the classrooms therefore a new teacher must be ready to tackle these challenges and shall expect to face at least a few of these in due course.
