Just Do It For Me: The Roles and Responsibilities of A Teacher Essay

As new teachers leave the world of the University for the world of teaching, they often do not fully understand what is expected of them. The roles and responsibilities of a teacher can be vague and hard to understand when a new teacher is unwilling to ask questions of a mentor teacher, or the mentor teacher is unwilling to aid the new student. As Cathrine Le Maistre states in her paper, titled â€Å"Mentoring Neophyte Teachers: Lessons Learned from Experience† there is a much higher level of attrition after the first year of teaching than in any other year (2000). She believes that new teachers should be taught how to use their own minds, and not simply be given â€Å"manila folder of notes† (La Maistre, 2000. p. 84) and be expected to follow them. At first she believes that experienced teachers are unwilling to help a new teacher, but later discovers that there is â€Å"lot of sympathy for a newcomer needing help† (La Maistre, 2000.p.85). La Maistre portrays b eginning teachers as overly confident in their own teaching abilities when they first leave their Bachelor or Education program. However the realize later that they are not yet ready, and still have a lot of learning to do before they become an experienced teacher. While Le Maistre was on her co-operative teaching program, her mentor teacher had handed her notes that he had used to teach Chemistry for a long time. Le Maistre believes that this does not help her learn to be an independent thinker, or to learn to plan lessons on her own. I believe that her mentor teacher should have made a bigger effort to teach her to be more self-reliant, instead of the large envelope of notes; he could have explained to her the process of making her own notes and given her his notes as an example, ra... ...eachers. If teachers are not responsible for their actions and the way they teach their students, then nobody will be responsible for the fate of the child. Bacon’s writing suggests that he believes that certain roles in the child’s life, are the responsibility of the parent, and other members of the community; without these values, which include personality development and a sense of right and wrong, children would not be fully developed as people, and would have a harder time serving a higher purpose in society (2005) I agree with Bacon in that Alberta’s teaching system is more of a business plan, as it is even entitled â€Å"Three-Year Business Plan† (Bacon, 1995. P. 89) and seems to centre around the idea that children are mass produced objects that teachers are simply supposed to produce for the world, as if a school is little more than a factory for children.