Comfort zones, cognitive overload and challenging changes

Spring has definitely arrived. Daffodils are out, leaving the house when it’s light, taking the outside route between lessons, and the general sense that everything is speeding up. Teaching-wise, everything is definitely speeding up.

I’ve completed my second term as a trainee teacher, which somehow means I’m already more than halfway through. How did that happen?

Everything feels like it’s ramping up at once. I’ve been teaching more hours (which is genuinely great because I’ve gotten to know my classes properly), my final PGCE deadline is looming on the horizon (I should be doing that 4500‑word assignment) and I’m assembling term two evidence to present to my senior tutor. Then, there’s the small matter of applying for jobs for September. School visits, application forms, interviews … it’s all part of the mix. This term has certainly felt like juggling while more balls were being thrown at me.

You’d think by this point, however, I’d be building momentum, confidently adding to that vision of the teacher I’m going to become. Right? Well, maybe.

What I’m discovering is that teacher training feels less like a gentle upward slope and more like a hurdles race, with each hurdle slightly higher. So far, I’ve managed to get over them, mostly thanks to the fantastic people around me. However, this term that wasn’t always as smooth. I hit a patch where I felt stuck.

Not terrible or hopeless. Just a bit stuck, like I’d suddenly plateaued. I’d go into lessons thinking, this time I’ll do that differently, then somehow, I ended up doing the same thing again. It’s frustrating and disheartening, even when you know every trainee teacher goes through it.

You’re learning in front of 30 very honest critics

I’ve been trying to understand why this happens, and part of it is surely cognitive overload. Our brains can only juggle so many new things at once, so the best approach is to only focus on one or two things to improve on. The trouble is classrooms are unpredictable places; you just don’t know what you will be faced with on a particular day and it can derail your best intentions.

Another aspect is moving from knowing what to do, to actually doing it. This is usually messy and far from perfect. Trying things out is a slow process and quite often it won’t work as you wanted it to, again cementing that feeling of not making progress.

I’m also now far enough into my training to realise I’ve developed comfort zones. They’re so tempting to fall back into, but they’re probably adding to my feeling of being stuck.

I’ve been trying to relate these feelings back to a time when I’ve felt stuck before, and believe it or not, my 14 year-old self has some advice.

I remember preparing for a piano exam and how much I hated my third piece of music. It didn’t matter how often I practised, it just wouldn’t click. One day, my teacher said, ‘You know what, we can swap it. There are alternatives.’ I was shocked. It was the same exam, same standard but suddenly, a piece I genuinely enjoyed was in front of me, and everything felt different. I practised more and improved faster. It wasn’t about taking the easy option, but finding a different way in. That lesson is echoing loudly in my teacher training now; if something isn’t working, experiment. That’s literally what training is for.

Of course, experimenting means you might fail, and this will be very visible. The unavoidable reality of teaching is that you’re learning in front of 30 very honest critics. And then comes the feedback. Lots of it.

Call and response is a technique I’ll go back to again with this class … it may just have helped them remember something

Feedback is necessary and genuinely helpful, but even with the kindest observer in the world, it’s still hard when you’re hearing the same point for the seventh time. It takes a healthy dose of humility to go back into a classroom thinking, ‘OK, let’s try this again.’ Teaching requires a constant willingness to be a beginner, which as an adult we rarely do, especially in public view.

So with that in mind, I decided to try a call and response activity with one of my classes who struggle with focus and engagement. I’d initially shied away from this technique as I’d thought it seemed a bit awkward and potentially cringey. But I’m so glad I did it.

After I had talked the class through what they needed to do, they joined in enthusiastically, repeating the second half of the definition back to me out loud on my cue. Once they had the hang of it, I repeated it several times throughout the lesson and we achieved a really good level of participation and success. It’s definitely a technique I’ll go back to again with this class, and it may just have helped them remember something.

Did I mention, all of this is happening at the same time as job hunting? One minute you’re trying to work out why one of your classes has decided they are no longer going to pay attention, and the next you’re visiting potential employers, writing applications and preparing to explain in an interview what your teaching philosophy might be.

There is a lot to work through, and teaching is so personal. I don’t think I knew what kind of teacher I wanted to be when I started. You can shadow and observe as many teachers as you like, but, eventually, you have to find your own style and voice. For me, I think that means allowing myself to consolidate for a bit (thank you Easter holidays), but also trying out small yet challenging changes. Perhaps then I will find the alternative piece-number-three version of the job, or combination of techniques that are going to work best for me. I’m not a teacher just yet, but the spring term has given me an idea of how I’m going to get there.