What Skills Do You Learn From Teaching in Primary School?

Being a teacher, in general, is one of the most difficult, yet most rewarding, occupations. And being a teacher for primary school students is no exception.

Helping children grow and learn is an important and noble task; and in the process, not only are the students learning from the teacher, but the teacher is learning from the experience. That is, they are learning particular skills and attitudes that are beneficial not just for work but for their life outside of the school setting.

How is that? How do school teaching skills help you in real life? The following are just a few examples of the behaviors and skills one develops as a result of working in a primary school:

Communication
Patience
Conflict resolution
Creativity
Confidence

Now let’s dive into them a little deeper.

1. Communication

Communication is a key skill needed to be a good teacher, especially when you’re teaching children. However, all things can improve over time.

A teacher probably already had decent communication skills before they began teaching, but over time their communication abilities begin to improve more and more as they developed their teaching techniques and practices. And communication is not only a useful skill for teaching, but it is also very useful for everyday life.

Say conflict arises, as it does in everybody’s life. How do we solve conflict?

Well, nine times out of ten, conflict can be resolved through both parties communicating with one another. When someone has had lots of practice communicating points, speaking with someone to solve a problem becomes a bit easier, as the person is aware of how to properly state the point they want to make.

Being a teacher is, of course, a career where someone gets a lot of practice communicating a point. Therefore, the first key life skill learned by a teacher is good communication.

2. Patience

It’s a well-known fact that in order to work with children, you’re going to need a whole lot of patience. This is a skill that a teacher will most definitely need to develop during their career, if they want to be successful working with their students.

Sometimes a child may not want to cooperate, or perhaps a child is having an especially hard time learning a particular concept. This can be frustrating, but letting anger control you is never a good idea, both at work and in real life. For everyone to remain productive, patience is necessary.

Many situations in real life require patience, too. There are many frustrating scenarios we all run into in our day to day lives, and having enough patience helps us get through them calmly. When one develops good patience working as a teacher, they will find themselves getting less and less heated over daily situations that may have previously caused irritation or anxiety.

3. Conflict Resolution

I briefly touched on this in the first paragraph, but I’d like to expand upon it in its own section.

Children are going to have squabbles just as much as adults do. And as a teacher, one must work to help the two parties find common ground and solve the problem. The process of helping little ones work out how they should solve problems will also assist the teacher in solving problems in their personal life.

As stated previously, communication skills help tremendously with conflict resolution, but the second skill, patience, is also extremely useful. Being patient with the other person or people you’re having an issue with helps bring the problem to a close, as you’re less likely to get as frustrated or angry. Solving the issue may take time, of course, and having patience allows this to take place.

4. Creativity

In order to keep children interested in a subject, a teacher must find creative ways to hold their attention while also teaching the concept in a clear, concise manner.

This, of course, requires creativity. And having creativity can help with a number of things. It helps you express yourself in various art forms, such as painting, sewing, crafting, or playing a musical instrument, just to name a few. Creativity can also help you through a number of difficult scenarios where the answer may not be so simple.

All in all, creativity adds some spice to life. Things like self-expression and, once again, problem-solving are a result of creativity. Teaching children allows one to get a good amount of practice with this particular skill. As previously mentioned, children’s attention is hard to hold onto; creativity is required to solve that issue.

5. Confidence

The next skill I want to touch on is self-confidence.

Confidence, I’ve found, is often developed when you repeatedly do things that you are afraid to try, whether it’s due to the task being new or due to doubting your own abilities. And teachers regularly perform one of the scariest tasks out there: speaking to an audience.

Speaking in front of a group is nerve-wracking, whether the group is of adults or of children. And not only are primary school teachers speaking to an audience; they are speaking to a young audience, one that relies on the speaker to develop their education.

As a result, over time, the teacher will not only develop confidence in their speaking abilities, but confidence in their teaching abilities as well, such as the aforementioned skills of creativity and problem-solving. And this confidence will extend from their work life to their personal life as well.

If a teacher used to be very shy and quiet, perhaps now they have become more comfortable with speaking to others. Perhaps they doubted themselves a lot, thinking that they were not good enough. Now, as time has gone by, they recognize their own skills and talents as a teacher, and this strengthens their self-esteem as a whole.

A Teacher Learns from Teaching

All in all, I would say that a teacher learns just as much, if not more, than the children they are teaching. As what a teacher tells children will often extend into their personal lives, what a teacher learns from their career will also extend into their own personal life.

Sources: Important job skills for teachers

Learning