Thank you Matthew McKinney for inspiring me to think about this particular topic. You mentioned the importance of being sensitive to older students as a young teacher (which happens to me my case).
I would like to raise a similar point which involves young teachers teaching young students. I started teaching at the earliest possible legal age of 21. I was teaching secondary students who ranged in age from 15 to 19. Obviously, this was a bit awkward. On several occasions I had the guys inviting me to keg parties and the girls flirting with me. Furthermore, being 21 and still in college, sometimes I might be seen in public after a party in not-so-good condition. And you can only imagine the concerns that the parents had.
So how do young teachers handle young learners? I found it to be very difficult, not only because of the age similarity, but also since it was my first year as a teacher. I felt the need to be an authority figure; I accomplished this by dumping tons of time into my lesson planning, thus making very authentic- and credible-looking lessons. I also tried to act more mature than I actually was, which turned out to be a failed tactic.
In the end the strategy that worked best for me was to simply identify with the students. I was careful not to get to close with them, but at the same time, I let myself come down to their level to a certain extent. Most of them eventually started to see me more as an older-brother type of role model instead of a formal instructor. They thought, "Wow, if I study hard and focus, I can be in *COLLEGE* just like him in only three years!"
Then there were the hecklers. "Hey, Mr. Richter, how old are you anyway?" I would calmly answer, "I'm older than fifteen and younger than thirty-five." That usually answered the question. Then they would ask, "Hey, Mr. R., do you have a GIRLFRIEND?" And I would calmly respond, "Maybe yes, maybe no." And that usually answered their question. The only really awkward question that got me was from a homosexual student who once openly hit on me in front of the entire class. That was a tough one! So the message here is that, as a proactive teacher, one can anticipate some of the likely questions that may come from students. In this sense you can think ahead about how you might handle the answers, thus poising yourself for a clam response instead of an embarrassing blunder.
I'm now 29 years of age and still teaching. I currently have a wide age range of students and no longer see age as a factor in terms of my comfort level in teaching.
Thoughts...?
