At the recent NASUWT conference in Birmingham, teachers were complaining that students on interview panels were asking them to sing a song and this ’stripped teachers of their professional dignity’.
As a visiting guitar teacher, I am forever singing to my students, I do this to set an example. It is an excellent way of communicating with them. I also discovered that children like it when adults sing to them, and that they are far more impressed with talent than with knowledge.
Teachers should not suffer assaults on their professional dignity because they should not be professional in the first place. Teaching, being about communication, is a creative career,like writing and singing. Yet they insist on seeing themselves as professionals like accountants and dentists.
The children instinctively know this. They should be encouraged to find out more about their teachers, Google them and see if they have any talent.
Filed under: Education
