On the basis of our experiences, we have realised that some of us had had always the same teacher during the primary school, while others had had a new teacher every year. This attacked our attention because we did not know the difference there were between one situation and the other one. Maybe making a simple changing, which is the years you are the tutor of a school year, we could make a big difference in our students.
On one hand, there are some advantages of having the same teacher during some years in primary school. First of all, if the teacher has the same students during some years he or she does not have to waste time and effort meeting new students, as Carmen says: ‘Every year the teacher spent some weeks learning our names and reorganise the tables because there were some children too much talkative’. In second place, children trust their teacher along the years; that way, they feel more comfortable to provide the class with their ideas, as we can observe in María’s experience: ‘as I have said, I stayed with the same teacher all the primary education. We loved him, and we loved giving ideas to him, so we invented lots of funny games’.
As Rudolf Steiner, mentioned by Ege (1993), said, the teacher is like an architect that organises the work futurology, being able to build on the foundations that he had built. For this reason, we believe that it is important that the teacher stay some years with his students.
On the other hand, as Savater (1995) says, students may have too much confidence to the teacher and they could forget he is not a friend. There are some students that do not respect their teacher. That is why some teachers are a bit unpleasant the first day of class, to be respected by his students or at least, to try that they do not disturb the class, as we can see in Carmen’s school experience: “This year a new teacher came to our class. He was very disagreeable and we were scared at him.
Few weeks later he started to be more pleasant and kind, but I did not like him anymore”.
Furthermore, as Maria’s says: “Although we were good children, there was a teacher that was always reprimanding us”. The teacher may not get on with his students and he has to stay many years with them. Then, if we have this problem, we could change the teacher the next year if he does not feel prepared to carry on with his students, as a solution.
Finally, the last problem is associated with teachers that do not stay at the same school every year. We have not found a real solution for this problem due to sometimes teachers do not know if they will be able to continue at that school, that is something we cannot control.
In conclusion, we agree with the idea teachers should stay some years with the same students; in order to know them better and do not waste that time every year. Also, the confident that increase between the teacher and the students. On the contrary, the only disadvantage, we think it is a real problem, would be teachers that do not stay at the same school. Personally, we think we cannot control it, but we wish there were a solution as soon as possible.
References:
Ege, Kart (1993). EL currículo de las escuelas Rudolf Steiner, su alcance y economía. Cuadernos de Micael, 16(5).
Savater, Fernando (1995). Ética para Amador. Madrid: Ariel
