Teacher Spotlight #6
Teachers have incredible power to have a positive impact on their students. Together with technology, the future of learning looks bright! We are digging into this topic to see how teachers view a future of education with technology, by interviewing teachers working in secondary education in the UK. This week, we caught up with Ferdinand, a Maths teacher and Assistant Head based in South London.
Name: Ferdinand
Based in: South East London
How did you get into teaching originally?
I was originally an accountant, working at a firm in the city. I did this for a while, but kept asking myself whether it was something that I wanted to do long-term. Some of my relatives were teachers around this time, and I always admired them and listened with great interest when they spoke about their work lives around the table. I grew up in Lewisham, and I still live around the area, and I had always wanted to do something for others growing up in the area. There is a specific set of challenges growing up in this environment, and I wanted to share my experience of overcoming them with students currently going through them.
I mulled this over for a long time, and decided to quit my job in the city to do a PGCE at Goldsmiths University, specialising in Mathematics education. I have always been good with numbers, and felt Maths was the best way to use the experience I had gained in accountancy over the years. During this time, I also did some volunteer work in schools around London, and it was immediately clear to me that I had made the right decision.
How do you think about the potential of technology in education, and where do you think it could have the most impact?
There is huge potential for technology to have a positive impact in education, without question. In particular, online learning platforms of the future will have the ability to identify the areas in which a student is struggling, and design a schedule of learning to tackle these in the most effective way. In my opinion, this has the greatest potential for learning at home, by providing students with the support that they currently receive at school, in all environments. This would be a massive step forward for us in education; knowing that learners are supported sufficiently in their learning regardless of where they are.
However, I do think there is an issue in the accessibility of educational technology. Unfortunately, before you are able to gain any benefit from technology, you must first have access to the right enabling technologies, like a good internet connection, and a laptop capable of running online platforms smoothly. This isn’t the case in many places, particularly here in London. Even in my school, there are students who don’t have access to phones or laptops, and the ones we are using in school are several years old and therefore can’t provide a good learning experience.
We are on the precipice of a change in education enabled by technology, but before we can fully step into this future, we have to provide each student with the technology to allow them to make full use of it. We also need to walk this line carefully, to ensure that we are not exacerbating the gap between students from different financial backgrounds, and give every student the chance to accelerate their learning.
What do you think are the key challenges for those students who don’t currently have access to the right technology, and come from the more underprivileged backgrounds?
Following on from the accessibility issue, I think there is also a lack of understanding for some of these students in how to leverage technology effectively in learning. There is very little guidance on how best to use the technologies that are out there, and I think can lead to less engagement. As teachers, and as EdTech companies, we all need to spend more time educating students on how to use products and technologies to the greatest effect.
Problems come up for students every day in their learning, but not all students know how to approach solving them, particularly when they are learning independently. This is part of the potential of technology, but it needs to make it as easy as possible for students to solve the specific problems they are facing.
If you could change one thing in our education system, what would it be?
I think there are many things that need work in our education system. Something that I am passionate about is the perception of teaching as a profession, and how that is being communicated from the inside. Since the start of my teaching career, my focus has been entirely on the students in my school. I feel as though the purpose of every school in the country is to provide the best learning and development experience for students. However, I think this message has been partially obscured recently, with the development of the negative stigma around teaching that we are seeing from both inside and outside the industry.
The truth about teaching is that it can be tough, because working with students can be unpredictable, and there is a lot of administrative burden. However, educating the next generation is one of the most important tasks of our generation, and it is therefore our duty to do this to the best of our ability, regardless of the challenges we face. I would love to see more positivity coming from teachers, as I believe that our work is incredibly rewarding and uniquely placed to have an impact on the next generation.
