Life Lessons

The Parallels of Teaching and Life Learning

Interview by Isabelle Moore

Despite the challenges of shifting online, the worldwide shutdown of schools has been an opportunity to recognise and celebrate teachers as key role models for our children’s social and emotional development. Marjorie is a public school vocational teacher based in the South of France. Her diverse world experience in translating and teaching languages, as well as her work in cinema, has been pivotal to her compassionate and inclusive approach to teaching. In this interview, Marjorie talks about school environments as frameworks for children and teenagers to understand the real world around them and its teachers as guides for students to skilfully and conscientiously engage with that world.

Marjorie, how did you become a teacher? 

Whilst I was working in New York City and Berlin, I had the opportunity to work as a French Language Assistant in schools. I wanted to discover the world and it was often easier to find jobs in teaching. Thisthis led me to live and teach in Germany, the Maldives, Australia and New Zealand. I also became a make-up artist in 2010, which was linked to my passion for cinema. I did everything with such little time: teach during the week, do make-up on the weekend or in my free time, and translate films and other projects at home.  

And how did these life experiences shape your approach to teaching?

Being a teacher is not just about being good at a particular subject, but being curious,open-minded and enthusiastic, and working with a subject in your everyday life. My experiences teaching foreign languages has gone hand in hand with teaching about foreign cultures. I continue to watch films and read newspapers and use these tools to help my students learn about the wider context of what they are studying. Currently I’m working in a vocational school, which is focused on architecture and construction. This appeals to my own interests in architecture, ecology and the environment, and so I seek to integrate these topics into my lessons to appeal to my students’ world view. 

In my formal education, I sometimes felt that I was lacking opportunities for creativity. As kids, we were put in a box early and had to stick to that category, for example, I was good at academias, so I went to university. Now, as a teacher, I’m more conscious of the different interests and skills that children have. 

It’s important for teachers to be aware of the realities of life and particularly work. Many teachers will never have worked outside the education system, but most of their students will. That’s why teachers need to use empirical, real life experience, to make their lessons become real for the students. 

What challenges did COVID-19 bring?

At home, my family life had to adapt to my professional life, as I was working whilst also caring for my son.  At work, we had to shift to online learning that wasn’t organised and prepared. The time we spent on teaching was significantly reduced because much more time was spent on administration and communicating with colleagues, with parents and with children individually.It was new to everyone. 

Our lesson plans changed completely, because the students were not prepared for online learning. Some schools might have been in a better situation because of their technological capabilities, but my school had limited facilities. At first, I was relying on an online platform with what I thought were really helpful features, but then I realised that only a small proportion of my students could actually access it or use it properly. Many of them didn’t have access to the internet or computers at home, or a quiet space in the house. Also, some parents weren’t in a position to help if they didn’t speak French well. 

That added another level of difficulty and we had to take it into account for assessment. It was clear that everyone had different levels of access to resources. Essentially, we had to forget about the curriculum and focus on keeping the students engaged and maintaining a link between the students and the school, so they didn’t give up on it despite these difficulties. 

Has the experience of online learning changed the way society views teachers? 

I hope there will be a better understanding of the fact that we provide more than just knowledge about a subject. Students have different ways of learning and we tailor our teaching to each and every student and know how to motivate them. We pay attention to their health, their mindset, their needs, their characters, and take all of that into account. Perhaps having their children at home, parents will have had a realisation about that part of the role of a teacher, about providing their children with guidance and structure, but also empowering them. 

What do you see as the role of teachers in society? 

Teaching is really about teaching how to learn. You can have all of the resources and the material, the technology to connect to anywhere in the world, but you need someone to help you contextualise it and analyse it, so that you know how to integrate all that information into your understanding of the world. It’s the difference between using an exercise machine and then training with a coach. We observe you, know your strengths and weaknesses, and how to help you.

School itself is important because it provides a place of inclusion and equity. For some students, it’s a place where they can be themselves, away from the issues they might have in their home lives.  All of the adults who work at a school provide a framework for students about what society is like: what the social codes are, what the limits of behaviour are, how to interact with others. At school, students meet with people from different backgrounds, they learn tolerance, they learn how to dismantle prejudices, and the adults at the school are their guides. 

What do you see as the role for parents in education? 

We need parents to work with us, as a team. The role of parents doesn’t stop when they drop their child at school. Often a high achieving/better performing student is one whose parents have taught them how to learn. Learning only becomes real when the student goes home and discusses what they’ve learnt and how to apply it; the continuity is important.  Of course, for parents who do not have formal education or who don’t speak the language, it’s harder for them to provide that continuity. Some parents really count on us because of the difference we can make in their children’s lives. 

At the same time, it is the structure of schooling that makes it possible for students to succeed, even if they don’t have the same advantages as others. If they are engaged with what school represents, the opportunities it provides, they can still succeed. 

What does the future of education look like? What role does technology play in this? 

Technology creates great opportunities for education if we contextualise it within the globalised world. Internet resources help us communicate with people from all over the world, access diverse views as well as address environmental and sustainability issues. I think there’s a real opportunity to use within schools, the media we use at home. Even incorporating entertainment platforms like Netflix can create that link between learning and day-to-day life. Teachers need to be better trained so that they can bring technology into the classroom. Hopefully, the experience of teaching in pandemic will make people appreciate the urgency of this need.

As we return to the classroom, we need to focus on teaching students not just on how to use technology, but how to apply their communication skills.They often communicate using their phones but not necessarily computers.. Some of the students I have worked with don’t know how to write a word document, attach it to an email and write an email with the appropriate wording that they will need in the workplace.  

Technology also gives people more options for accessing education. Remote schooling has existed for a long time, like the radio ‘School of the Air’ in remote Australia, but it hasn’t always been accessible. Now, people are seeing that going to school doesn’t have to mean being near a big city. Thanks to technology, access to education doesn’t have to be an obstacle like it was before.