People generally underestimate the importance of Elementary Teachers. They do not realize what’s at stake, because they have little understanding of human psychology and stages of child development. And do teachers comprehend it well? We will look at it in this article.

When we learn the basics

A little child is like a sponge. They absorb everything that is happening around them and subconsciously learn how to act in the most basic situations. We parents are the first role models. But many people do not know that every little boy and girl creates more than eighty percent of their formulas of thinking and behavior by the age of six! Due to strong bond and trust into parents, these formulas are pretty fixed and it is difficult to change it later in life. If you know somebody that is harsh, angry all the time, or even aggressive, you can bet that he did not have the best childhood. This is also a reason why kids from incomplete families often struggle to get along each other and stick to the rules at school. It is not directly linked to the fact that they have one parent only. . . .In reality, it is more connected to what they heard and felt as children (arguments of parents, shouting, little attention, etc.).

First Teacher – Second Role Model

But let’s get back to the position of Elementary Teacher. They are typically the second role models for children; the people they take over remaining twenty percent from. In the school, children are subject to new situations and scenarios. They interact with other people, are part of a bigger group, and should collaborate. It is the teacher who can influence them, who can show them how to do it right—going by example. But he can also do everything wrong, not listening to the children, prioritizing some and overlooking others, or lead them to hate and envy rather than love. . . .If it happens in these stages of their life, it will very difficult to change their behavior later. As they approach the end of elementary school, children are fully developed in terms of formulas of thinking and behavior, as they already went through all kinds of social interaction and scenarios. Therefore, none teacher is as important as the elementary one.

How to do it right

In some European countries they realized it already and made the hiring process pretty tough. They use lot of behavioral elementary teacher interview questions, role play exercises and psychometric. Actually in some Nordic countries it is difficult to get to the teaching college as well, and just the best students graduate. And they are well paid too. . . . Regretfully, in most countries the exact opposite is true. There isn’t any marketing of this career; everyone talks just about IT and management. Even the worst students can enroll for teaching degree and finish the study without any significant problems. Teachers earn half as much as programmers or managers, so the brightest people aren’t really motivated to enroll for the subject.

But how long will this situation last? When will we finally realize that we need quality elementary teachers more than quality programmers or managers? I hope it won’t be too late…