Teachers should understand their own psychology just as much as they need to understand the psychology of the children they teach. What goes on in the classroom may be described as a process of interaction between pupil and teacher, between classroom group and teacher, and between the individual child and the classroom group. The teacher, as much a part of  their process of interaction to the learners, has approximate relation to the insight and understanding he possesses regarding himself. Teacher and learners alike are affected by some norms and standards of the culture and community. Teachers, for instance, experience a sense of freedom and heightened morale under democratic leadership or, conversely, feel rebellious or apathetic under authoritative leadership just as children do (Lindgren 1956). The first things a teacher must do to understand what goes on in the classroom is to understand himself and the psychological factors and forces in his environment.

            The varied duties, functions, and problems for which the teacher is responsible, to enact a number of psychological roles which serve as an effective guide of learning experiences are as follows.

1. EXECUTIVE AND ADMINISTRATIVE ROLES

Teachers play many roles. They interlock and overlap. Some are complementary and some are contradictory. Teachers are appointees of the school system in which they work. The first and most obvious roles under executive and administrative roles are:

1. Initiator, director, and evaluator of learning experience– This is the chief reason why teachers are employed, to see that learning takes place. This role serves as a kind of nucleus for other subordinate roles.
2. Representative of society– Teachers are the persons who are concerned with transmitting the values and standards of the culture and community. Therefore, they are more or less faithful mirrors of the society in which we live.
3. Subject-matter expert – we are the persons who have studied and mastered certain areas of learning, and who thus have some idea of the breadth of what there is to learn.
4. Disciplinarian– we are the persons who must see that the classroom group and its members stay within the limits set by the society, the school, and the needs of the group.
5. Clerk – most professional jobs require a large a amount of clerical work, and teaching is no exception. There are marks to be entered, tests to be scored, reports to be made, papers to be corrected, and so on ad infinitum.
6. Interpreter to the public– In this role, teachers help the public to arrive at a better understanding of the community, school, and what they are attempting to accomplish.
7. PSYCHOLOGICALLY ORIENTED ROLES.

The following are the second group of roles of teachers:

1. Educational psychologist– the psychological worker in an educational setting. This roles is a relatively new one for teachers to play. The teacher realizes that traditional roles are to limiting and do not provide the bases for the effective promotion of learning.
2. Artist in human relations– the person who works with a variety of techniques and forces to produce situations that will stimulate learning. The term “artist” is used because the work of an effective teacher is much more than using the “right techniques.”
3. Catalytic agent– a catalyst is an element or substance that helps bring about change. A teacher may be sought as a psychological catalyst because many changes occur merely because he is there.
4. Mental hygiene worker– this role includes all the functions the teacher performs in helping children to learn a more effective patterns of living, in reducing their neurotic anxieties and in helping their psychological needs.
5. SELF-ORIENTED ROLES

This third group of roles played by the teachers is an attempt to meet their own personal needs and their self-concepts.

1. Social service worker– Most teachers choose their profession partly because it offers an opportunity to help others, to build a better world, or to give something of themselves to further the common good.
2. Parent-figure- Children tend to look upon teachers somewhat as they would upon substitute parents. Their attitudes toward teachers tend to be somewhat similar to the attitudes they have toward their own parents, and they expect teachers to react and behave more or less as their parents do.
3. Power seeker– This is the role of the person who enjoys controlling and directing other people, the role of other person who “knows best” and wants to improve the best on the lives of others.
4. Security seeker– It is difficult to decide how much power is enough because there is always the chance that the unexpected may happen. One of the chief difficulties in pursuing power and security is that we can become so absorbed in our pursuit that we easily lose sight of our main job.

The foregoing list of the many roles that teachers play, as described by Lindgren, is very useful for it reveals some of the ways in which teachers behave differently from other professional workers. It gives some hints on the kind of satisfaction and frustration in the teaching job.

Sources:

Aquino, Gaudencio V. and Razon,

Perpetua  IT. Educacational Psychology Copyright 1993.

Lindgren, Henry Clay: Educational Psychology in the Classroom

Copyright 1956

 

 

By: RODOLFO P. VALDEZ SR. | LUZ ELEMENTARY SCHOOL | Limay District- Limay Bataan