Bridging the Information Gap

Bridging the Information Gap

6th October, 2015

Alex delves into the lack of connection in knowledge between pre-service teachers and recent graduates. He discusses his own fears about beginning teaching and makes the call to start bridging the information gap.

One of the issues concerning pre-service teachers today is making the transition from their current undergraduate state to being a full-time teacher. I believe that the underlying issue behind this concern is the mysterious knowledge gap that exists between PSTs and teachers who have just finished their first few years. I have had the opportunity to observe a few classrooms with teachers that have been two to five years out of university. As I watched them and marvelled at the casual way they went about teaching, several questions formed in my mind; how did they get from where I am, to where they are now? What do they know that I don’t? What will happen in my first year teaching? Will I struggle and fail? All I knew was that there was a stark difference in ability between myself and the teachers I was observing – I wanted to know why.

When I raised the idea with my 2nd year Associate Teacher*, she firmly remarked that she learnt everything about teaching in her first two years on the job. Whether or not this is the case for other teachers, it hints at the idea of the mysterious information gap and suggests there is much to be learned in the initial stage of being a graduate teacher – perhaps more than we can imagine. However, given the limited amount of time you have with your associate teacher, and the fact that they often find it difficult to pinpoint the complex nature of graduate teaching, there seems to be a lack of knowledge or effort around the idea of bridging this gap.

And, I don’t know about you, but that makes me nervous.

All PSTs know how challenging, and rewarding, placement can be. It’s an exhausting time. But after nearly three years of studying primary school teaching, I was hoping to be ready to face the challenges of being a graduate teacher. Yet there still remains this dark and mysterious gap. What skills, strategies, experiences and knowledge am I missing? I don’t want the first few years of my teaching career to be filled with struggle and turmoil as I work through the challenges every new teacher faces – surely we could find out what knowledge we need to survive and excel!

So I started reaching out. I talked to as many graduate and senior teachers as I could and I asked them about their first few years of teaching. In the coming weeks I will be posting interviews to this blog from several different teachers about their initial teaching experiences, with the hope of sharing what they believe to be the crucial elements that lead to success in graduate teaching.

If there is anything to take away from this blog post it’s this; it’s ok to be nervous or anxious about becoming a teacher, but we need to do something. While the current system of teacher training needs to acknowledge the disconnected nature between university and the teaching practice, we need to be proactive. We should find solidarity in each other as PSTs and work together so we ARE prepared for our first years of teaching. We need to bridge the information gap, but we should do it together.

- Alex

*An Associate Teacher is the person who supervises a PST when they on their placement. The PST will do their placement within their Associate Teachers classroom and will be marked and mentored by them.