Being a State School Teacher as a METU Graduate

by Fatih Gün / FLE 2013

I am an 8 month old teacher at a state school in Caglayancerit / K. Maras, I love this small city very much not because it has many facilities (actually there is almost nothing-a place bigger than a village smaller than a city-anyway let’s say a city) but because it has many beautiful natural attractions and the people are very nice and warm here. They love teachers and show respect. They are very hospitable and almost every week for one night I have my dinner at one of my student’s home as their guest. As this is a small city, almost everyone knows each other. For example, I know almost all teachers working at other schools (there are 3 more other schools in the city) and we do some activities together like football matches or going to picnics, going fishing etc. I feel also lucky because l have a good relationship with our principal (that will be one of the most important things for you-having a good relationship with your principal) and also with district director of national education*. I am sure that if I lived in a big city I wouldn’t experience these beauties. Believe me being a graduate of METU is the first reason for these good relationships. They feel lucky because they have a METU graduate teacher and this situation makes me happy but at the same time makes my situation harder. They have big expectations from me and I have to work hard to meet the expectations. While doing this I feel myself responsible for not only myself but also for METU because I feel as if I am an ambassador of METU kingdom.

In this small city, I am teacher at a boarding school with 450 students (190 of them boarders) and 23 teachers. (if you want to be a state school teacher, let it be a boarding school. You will not regret.) Being a state school teacher as a METU graduate never sounds good for a FLE student but this is life and you never know what is awaiting for you. Is it the worst thing you may encounter? Of course not. Or depends. If you are someone addicted to AVMs, clubs, bars, night clubs etc. most of the places you might go to work at a state school are not type of you and you will have to find a way to go back to Ankara or any other big cities. However, if you are not, I have some more nice things which may attract your attention to say. Pure love. That is the most precious thing your students will have in their lovely world to share with you. Half of a boiled egg. Yes, I am not kidding. They sometimes want to share their homemade-food they get with them for their lunch with you (by the way cherry and plum time is coming).  In a private school, your students may invite you to McDonalds or BK but here they bring you a bucket of homemade yoghurt, leave it on the table and just before you ask what it is they disappear. These are what they can do for you in return of your effort, at least only a few of the nice precious moments l have experienced in a few months.

They don’t have much to do for you but you have a lot to do for them. For example when l first came here l realized that there was no library and got contact with ‘Odtu Köprü’ and they are coming here in 2 weeks for a library project for my school (who knows, among you there might be someone who is now reading this and will come here for our project.). Your students will be generally poor in academic sense. Especially at the beginning you will get crazy when you see that they can’t understand the topic. Be patient.After a while they will start doing what you are expecting from them and this will make you the happiest person in the world. 7 months ago the best student were doing 12-13 out of 20 questions but now 3-4 of my 7th grade students give correct answers to all the questions asked in tests given to all students in the city.Ofcourse the scores are not everything but one of the things you use to measure their levels. For example this is a sentence one of my students formed in the last written exam ‘my mother didn’t use to buy bread when she was young because she made her own bread but now she goes to supermarket to buy bread.’ Just 2-3 out of 65 students are at this level but even this is a progress or achievement because even this student had problems in introducing herself 7 months ago, you can’t imagine how the other 60 students were at the beginning.To achieve this, not only me but also my students have been working hard. Sometimes we spent our weekends at school to study English which made parents, other teachers or principal appreciate us. So you should be self-sacrificing.You will spend some of your weekends at school while other teachers are sleeping at their home. And when you make them love English, your lessons will be the most enjoyable time for them at school and almost every morning they will wait for you with flowers to be given you and finally you will see that they start speaking English ‘cat-pat’.

I’ve been talking about things you can do for them and they can do for you. Isn’t there anything you can do for yourself besides getting their love, flowers, boiled eggs and yoghurt? Of course there is and there are. You will have much more time to read books than you did at university, you will have much time to make future plans and preparations for master degrees etc.

By the way don’t forget to leave behind most of the stuff you have learned at METU as you will have almost no chance to use them in your classes. You will be alone with your students in your class and you will have to find your own way to make them first love English then learn.

Now you can ask this question: What is the point of studying at METU if we will not use the things we have been learning? You will not use them directly in your classes but you will be a METU graduate and I assure you that you will feel that difference.Thanks to your competence and experiences you got at METU, you will have no classroom management problems (at least I didn’t have any yet). As I am a teacher of 2^nd-4^th-7^th grade students I didn’t have any but I don’t know how it would be if I were a teacher at a high school. You will feel as if a high-born in the movies among your colleagues. You may struggle with lack of experience but you will have enough competence and confidence. Not only students but also teachers will admire you, will show respect to you. But be ready. There will be sometimes you will feel alone. You will feel lost because the way you see the World and they do most of the time is different. Because you are a METU graduate but they are not.There will be sometimes they just talk about their salaries, cars, sleepless nights because of the TV programs they watched or some other simple tasks you mostly don’t care and you will leave the staff room and feel lost and ask this holy question ‘what the hell am I doing here?’. You will miss the campus, the stadium, your friends, METU. In these situations remember this you are there not for them but for your lovely students. But if you don’t leave the room and are involved in these kinds of conversations after a while, if you start talking about your salary etc. that is not good my friend, that is not.  You will be different. You will feel this any time you start speaking and they start looking at your eyes and even the most experienced teachers will ask your opinions in many topics.Your ideas, words will get the importance they deserve.

To sum up,with all the negative and positive sides, being a state school teacher is something all METU-FLE graduates should experience maybe not for their whole life but at least for a period of their life to feel that they are more than they think they really are.

*I mean ‘İlçe Milli Eğitim Müdürü’ but I am not sure if I could.