A quick look at teacher forums
and social media today reveals a striking scene: novice teachers, bright-eyed
but often exhausted, frantically scour the internet and plead with colleagues
for ready-made lesson plans, activities, tests, and quizzes. To an
unsympathetic observer, this desperate search might look like laziness—a
refusal to "do the hard yards" of planning. However, that view
completely misses the forest for the trees. What we're actually seeing is not
indolence, but a very real-world response to the huge chasm between pedagogical
theory (what they learned) and classroom practice (what they face every day).
This common behavior signals a systemic flaw, but it also reflects something
admirable: a profound yearning to teach well, to make learning truly worthwhile
for their students, and simply, to get it right.
As a teacher who began teaching
in the late 1980s — an era of chalky fingers and clunky blackboards — I
understand that impulse all too well. Back then, there were no search engines
one could summon instant inspiration from, no online forums teeming with shared
wisdom. I, too, sought ready-made material from experienced colleagues, hoping
to pilfer their magic. Most refused — not out of meanness, but out of wisdom.
Left to my own devices, I struggled through the nights, crafting my initial
“pedagogical dishes” from scratch. Those years were my true apprenticeship, my
baptism by fire.
I recall one sweltering afternoon
when I was attempting to explain an English word without slipping into Arabic.
My hair was damp with sweat, my patience thinning, my students wide-eyed. Years
later, one of them — now a high-ranking official — reminded me of that exact
moment: “I remember your long, straight hair was wet with sweat as you tried to
define that word. Thanks for trying.” That single memory, more than any
promotion or certificate, remains my greatest reward. As Paulo Freire once
wrote, “Teaching is not the transfer of knowledge, but the creation of
possibilities for its own production.”
Every young teacher deserves the
grace to grunt and stumble, to burn their fingers a little before they become
masters of the craft. Their hunger for pre-packaged lessons is not a quest for
comfort but a hunger for excellence. They want their classes to shine, their
students to grow, and their own hearts to feel the quietude of satisfaction of
a lesson well-taught. The trouble is not in their desire, but in the system
that leaves them insufficiently equipped to meet it.
In most teacher training
institutes, theory is presented in sterile separation, as if classrooms were
Petri dishes. Yet the real classroom is a living organism — unpredictable,
noisy, and magnificiently imperfect. New teachers, thrust into this whirlwind,
often feel like sailors thrown into a storm without a chart or compass. Their
desperate search for ready-made materials is really a search for a lifeboat — a
bridge between theory and practice, a concrete model to copy and adapt.
When novice teachers borrow,
simplify, change and modify proven lessons, they are, in effect, standing on
the shoulders of giants. Einstein once said, “The only source of knowledge is
experience.” By reworking the experiences of others, they gain velocity in
their own. This is not intellectual piracy; it is apprenticeship — a silent
form of professional development where imitation precedes innovation.
But this reliance on shared
resources also exposes a deeper ailment: the absence of sustained, on-the-job
training and mentorship. My own growth as a teacher did not happen in
isolation; it was nurtured by seasoned supervisors, lively pedagogical meetings
in Morocco and abroad, and the courage to step outside my comfort zone through
presentations and model lessons. Lacking such support and opportunities for
growth, many teachers today turn instead to the digital agora — those vast
online communities — as a substitute for the mentorship they never had.
Instead of wagging fingers at new
teachers who “copy and paste,” we must listen to what their behavior is
communicating. It is a call for help and guidance, not a confession of
weakness. The solution lies not in shaming, but in scaffolding — in building
systems that accompany the teacher’s early struggles with patience and
generosity.
John Dewey once observed, “If we
teach today’s students as we taught yesterday’s, we rob them of tomorrow.” The
same applies to teachers. If we prepare them with outdated methods, we rob the
classroom of its future vitality. Teacher training must break from abstract
frameworks and shift towards living practice: model lessons, peer observation,
and collaborative lesson studies where ideas are tested, refined, and shared.
Let us then reframe the
narrative. The novice teacher’s search for ready-made materials is not a flaw
to correct, but a spark to nurture — the flame of commitment that drives them
to seek the best for their students. When properly guided, that search can
evolve into a powerful culture of professional growth, where teachers learn
with and from one another. As the old saying goes, “A candle loses nothing by
lighting another candle.”
And so, rather than dismissing
the novice teachers’ quest, let us offer them matches instead of lectures,
encouragement instead of criticism, help instead of prejudices — for in
kindling one teacher’s flame, we brighten the entire classroom of tomorrow.
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