1) GRR1F is a female teacher with only 1 year of teaching in a Realschule, and she teaches English, history, and social science (including politics, geography, social work) for 4 classes of Grade 7 and one class of Grade 9, 128 students in total. Personally she doesn’t remember much about her own school life, because she just had to sit there and listen to teachers, which she really didn’t like. So when she became a teacher, she wanted to change that and do something different and special in her classes.
She believes successful education is that students come together and learn something, they are happy, and don’t regret what they have to do at school, and she believes that the goal of school is not just to teach students the knowledge, the students of today need methods about how to learn and how to handle their life. Since kids have fantastic ideas, teachers have to be creative and make lessons full of fantasy, give students great topics and questions for the lessons, let them work on the projects on their own or together in groups, then they will find out everything by themselves, she believes. On the contrary, when students just sit at front of the teacher, they will simply stop listening and thinking, that’s not really education.
She thinks positive classroom atmosphere can help to realize the successful education, for instance, when the light colors, everything is clean and neat, and everyone knows how to work. When a student likes to go to school and wants to finish school, it’s a success even though he/she has no good marks. When a student gives up on study, but with the help of parents and teachers, he/she starts to learn again, that’s also a success.
When a student is independent or starts to be independent, it’s successful. But she
doesn’t think a student good at exams is successful, because it’s a wrong age to be successful in exams, they do need exams to start their jobs, but she doesn’t think it’s good for them to write good exams now, for at the age of 16, they don’t want school but have other topics in their mind.
In the teacher training, she learned how to organize the classroom, but when she started to be a teacher, she didn’t know exactly what to do and how to work with students. So she visited some schools to take a look, and was very impressed by a school where they made open lessons in class, and the students could walk around to every station and decide by themselves what they want to learn, which helped her make clear her mind and decide to do in that way. Now in her teaching, she is free to teach the topics, to organize the classroom, and to decide the ways of teaching, which she think is fantastic.
She believes most of the time her belief directs her teaching. She tries to be creative in her lessons, she puts a lot of energy to create materials on her own, and she tries to be motivated every day because sometimes students don’t want to learn. She thinks practice makes perfect, so she lets students do a lot of practice for tests. She is a very organized teacher and also teaches her students to be organized and prepared, because she believes, when they are organized, they don’t really need teachers but can be successful in their study and exams. Sometimes she spends extra hours after school with students who want to learn more or need extra help, so as to help them be successful with small steps and feel confident in the subjects.
However, she also admits that she can do creative work only sometimes when the students really work on their own and have fun with learning, but most of the time she is just a normal teacher having normal lessons, also because some students cannot change the way of learning. Sometimes the lessons can be terrible, when students just sit there and switch off their brains, they don’t listen and don’t try to work, so they have to go out of the classroom or sit in front of the classroom. About diversified teaching, she thinks it’s difficult and complicated, and she cannot handle it as a fresh teacher.
She hopes to have more books, new media for teaching, and some laptops for students so that they can work on their own. But she knows they are very expensive, and the school can’t buy anything, because they have to wait for the money at first. Sometimes she brings materials from home or makes by herself, but she is quite positive on the
situation, and tries to do the best with what she has, being polite and happy, not being frustrated because she doesn’t have good teaching materials. She thinks it very important that students can work on projects to learn more about the society, or they make some work experience in companies who should think about how to help students be more successful and prepared for the jobs later, not just saying they want educated people to work.
2) GRK4M is a male teacher with 4-year teaching experience in a Realschule, he teaches the subjects of German, history and politics in Grade 8 and 10, 4 classes and 96 students in all. He believes successful education is about the relationship between teachers and students, if a teacher gets very much trust of students, he/she has the opportunity to build the relationship with them, gets to know what’s going on in their mind, and more easily finds out their secrets and enjoys how they develop the secrets. But if a teacher can’t touch the souls of children, then he/she can’t educate them anything, because he/she is working with human beings, not working with machines, everybody gets his/her own idea of exploring the world, so the teacher just has to talk with children about their wants.
Of course, he has to help the students in reading and writing, so that they can find jobs later, but he believes it’s more important to help students find out what they can be proud of themselves, learn to stand for their rights at the right moment, hold their heads up and have the force to fight against the bad things in the world. In his eyes, successful students are happy and open-minded, are interested in things that he could offer, are of solidarity and want to help each other, and can handle their own life. Students good at exams are also successful, but first of all, they have to have success in the life. The mark is not everything, but it’s also important, otherwise, they cannot get to the next class.
Personally he was a very bad pupil at school, and had bad teachers and bad situations with his teachers, his parents were shamed about his exams all the time, saying he was stupid. That’s why now he pays so much attention on the relationship, he always tries to build good relationship with his students, make friends with them, look at their possibilities, and show them he has time for them and is interested to listen to them, which he believes helps to touch their souls. He also tries to be a straight role model for them, and shows them he’s just a human who can make mistakes, so they can make
mistakes too. His students said he’s not like a teacher, but more like a brother and a good friend.
In the preparation for lessons, he always tries to look for what the students want and don’t want, and tries to make some big inventions, so they can see he is fantastic and puts a lot of energy in the lessons, and they could understand they are important for him to do that, which also helps the relationship be built up. For instance, he could teach history like a theatre, and he acted as a person in the history by dressing clothes of that time to show students how the past looked like, and the students were also part of the stage. In the 4 years of his teaching, he made a lot of movies with his students and 28 projects about the world and environment, which he believes became an important part of their study experience, and in the process the students also learned a lot of knowledge and developed many skills.
A professor in the university had a nice discussion with him, and helped him figure out what kind of teacher he wanted to be, and what he could develop students. He understood everybody got opportunities to develop himself/herself, and he could teach his students in a different way, not like to put water in a big pot and wait, or just to open the book and go further. But in the reality, the education system and environment don’t give him much possibility to develop what he wants, so his belief changed in some way, for example, in the beginning he only wanted students to be happy, but now he’s realized that he shouldn’t forget the subjects a teacher should teach.
However, he tries very hard to keep his belief in his teaching by taking fewer lessons and less salary, because he needs a lot more time to create everything by himself, and he doesn’t decide by himself which parts of the textbooks students have to learn, but asks them what’s important for them, and then he organizes the communication with students. Still it’s very difficult for him to hold on his belief, in fact, he is very disappointed and cannot handle the system, as a result, he has made his decision to quit the job.
3) GRF10F is a female teacher teaching English, French and geography in Grade 7-9, 3 classes and 88 students altogether, and she has been a teacher in a Realschule for 10 years. She believes education can be successful when teachers have a good relationship with students who feel appreciated and liked by the teachers; when teachers teach
students to be responsible; when teachers can differentiate students to look at the students at first and decide what they need, then give them individual work on different levels and individual feedback; when there’re many books, a great variety of teaching techniques, a good class atmosphere, classroom management and rules of class.
Successful education also needs a good working school where the headmaster has rules and appreciates the work of teachers.
When students learn how to organize themselves, how to learn, and how to talk to teachers, when they understand themselves, where their difficulties are and what they’re good at, when they know when to pay attention and concentrate, they are successful students in her belief. But those who always do what teachers want or say are not successful. It’s sure that a student who is good at exams and gets good marks is successful at school, but she doesn’t think the student can also be successful in life, so it depends. For students, it’s more important that they have good social competence, they learn personality, learn to be self-confident to stand and speak in front of the class, and learn to solve problems and handle the stress and pressure.
She learned in the university that all the points she believes are important, and some pedagogists have those principles as well. She also found from her own experience of teaching that students could learn in a well-organized classroom with a trustful atmosphere, so in the beginning of school year, she always talks about rules, and do games from which the students learn to trust each other and talk to each other with no fear, and before students she always tries to be a reliable person, to be herself and be transparent. Sometimes she teaches them learning skills, like how to understand texts and words, how to learn vocabulary and prepare for tests, and how to use the brain.
She doesn’t think her belief has changed, but she admits that all the points she mentioned are very difficult to do in the reality, because often she has to stop lessons to communicate with troublemakers, or many students misunderstand disciplines and think she dislikes them, which makes her feel difficult to work on the relationship. But she always tries to give her best, and she thinks her belief directs her teaching, for example, she tries to work on the relationship all the time, most of the time it works, but if there’re too many students in class or too many troublemakers, it can’t work. She wants to differentiate in class and does try to teach on different levels that students can decide
and learn to be responsible for their work, but when she has 30 students, she can’t really do that because of too many students and the lack of time.
Honestly she gets the feeling that she’s never reached her ideals on education, also because she constantly has to do something else, like talking with parents, and motivating students, when she already has too much work and too many students. So sometimes she feels she is trying to survive, not trying to teach, which makes her feel very unhappy. She would love to have fewer students - 15-20 would be good in one class, and have fewer hours of work, work in a team with another teacher who can deal with the troublemakers or the students who have problems with listening, paying attention, or organizing themselves. But in the reality, she just goes on and on with the situation, and tries to persuade herself that she is just a normal person, and she already gives her best and can’t do more.
4) GRD21F is a female teacher with an experience of 21-year teaching in a Realschule, and she teaches English and biology in Grade 5/7/9/10, 5 classes and 118 students. In her opinions, every student has to learn a certain amount of knowledge and develop the character, so successful education has two things to do, one is to pass on the knowledge, and the other is to develop children’s characters, so that they could be self-confident, open-minded, and tolerant, could keep the rules and become strong individuals fit for life when they leave school. A student with good marks is successful, and marks are important to get a good job or go to university. But she also believes not only do the marks count, it’s more important to be a socially active person to behave well in the society.
She thinks what she believes on education has something with her own life history, and there were 2 or 3 teachers who influenced her a lot when she was a student at school, and a few adults who also had influence on her. Somehow they have become her certain role models at her back during her teaching, and have impact on her way of teaching. In the teacher training, she got different ideas as well. She thinks, after she became a teacher, her belief changed a little bit, which mostly is that she learned certain methods that help her teach better with her own experience, but the main part of her belief stays.
Frankly she doesn’t realize if her belief really directs her teaching, and all the time she even is not aware of it, but she believes it’s there in the background somehow.
She always tries to be an honest person, to be open and friendly to students, to behave in a certain way, for she wants to be a role model for her students. When she sees that her students don’t know or are not able to do the exercises, she tries to explain again and let them do easier ones or make them repeat. In her class, the students have different nationalities and sometimes there’re some bully cases among students due to the cultural gaps, so she takes it as a class topic and lets them speak about their traditions and habits, so as to help them learn to be more tolerant and more empathetic to other people.
From her experience, she learned that children can learn a lot easier if there are positive feelings in the classroom, for which humor and laugh play an important role, so she tries to have some fun in the classroom. However, sometimes it’s hard for her to succeed in teaching in some classes, and when the conflict happens between her belief and the reality, she doesn’t think there’s a lot that she can do, she said she just tried to do a good job as she could, and wouldn’t go out to demonstrate for better working condition or a different system.
5) GRB33F is a female teacher on the subjects of English, Arts, and religion in Grade 6/8/9, 3 classes and 79 students, she has been teaching for 33 years in a Realschule.
During so many years of experience with students, she has found that, if a student is not motivated or organized, even though he/she is very intelligent, it’s difficult for him/her to use that intelligence successfully. So she thinks to be successful a person needs more components and different things, like good intelligence, good structure, self-management, curiosity and motivation, with which he/she can go forward to learn new things that he/she wants to know.
Therefore, she believes successful education is that students can use their intelligence to deal with subjects, they are very self-motivated, and they are self-organized at studying alone and in groups as well. If students bring their personality and develop it at school with the help of teachers, if they can use the strengths of their personality, use the things teachers teach them, and use the methods to do good learning, like doing homework regularly, listening to others, organizing with exercise books, having a good management, and if they also use the social together for class, they can be successful.
For her, a student good at exams is successful, a good mark is also a good feedback and can give him/her a good feeling.
She noticed that a lot of students today don’t get used to live in the social groups, some of them only see themselves and all others are not important, “if you have a lot of students who only think ‘I am very important’, it’s not a good base for learning”. Hence, she changed her belief a little bit and put more stress on social community, group work and social learning. And she believes social together is a very important behavior, because “you are not only a single learner, if you are accepted in the group, you can
She noticed that a lot of students today don’t get used to live in the social groups, some of them only see themselves and all others are not important, “if you have a lot of students who only think ‘I am very important’, it’s not a good base for learning”. Hence, she changed her belief a little bit and put more stress on social community, group work and social learning. And she believes social together is a very important behavior, because “you are not only a single learner, if you are accepted in the group, you can