The skill of being a ‘snake charmer

Teachers play many roles in their career. The aim here is to give you a picture of some alternative roles
that you might find yourself playing when you progress in your ability to manage a class.

Waiters, When you first begin teaching, you are trying to understand the subtleties of all those demands
and comments which students make. Consequently, you respond to what they want rather than what is
best for them. Initially, the students may determine many of your actions because it is difficult for you to
take the initiative and drive the pace of work forward yourself. You engage in the role of ‘waiter’,
moving from group to group of students or from student to student, responding to what you perceive as
their needs. This is a very exhausting style of teaching because you are not exactly in control of your life.
You need to move to a style to which the students respond and where you are dictating the pace more
frequently.

Plate spinners, Once you become someone who feels that your role is to respond as fast as you can to
students, you can find yourself turning into a frantic plate spinner. In this model, you try to keep
everything going by literally dashing from child to child giving them an extra spin, as if they were plates
on bamboo canes. This can happen if you are trying to rescue children’s collapsing clay pots or limp
papier mâché. The materials cause the inevitable panic. More usually, it means that you have
transmitted to students the tacit message: ‘Nothing we do here lasts for more than two minutes.’ If you
are dashing round keeping plates spinning, then your students are not themselves engaged in sustained
pieces of work. They are dependent on you. The same plates seem to fall off the bamboo canes. All the
students are likely to do, if they find you so available, is to demand even more. Watch an experienced
teacher and you will see that they make clear decisions about who to talk to next, who to send away and
who to keep waiting.

Lion tamer Thankfully, this model is on the decline. In this mode you are very defensive indeed.
Psychologically you keep such a distance between yourself and the students that they rarely break
through the defence. Lion tamers can be heard cracking the whip and shouting ‘Right, right then!’,
stalking round the room while students push pens on paper. More subtle versions of this are to make
your style of teaching so mistrustful that you have to put a desk between yourself and the students most
of the time. Even if there is no desk, children will be heard to say: ‘Well, school’s all right but you have to
do everything their way and we can’t choose anything.’ The style is so rigid that the lion tamer simply
dare not for a moment give any responsibility to children.

Tennis player Here you move around the tennis court (classroom) and are capable of asking questions of
students who are on the baseline (the area farthest from you) as well as at the net. You can use the
occasional drop shot, half-volley and move to dominate the centre of the room. You can take risks and
generate a good working pace by being in a number of different areas of the classroom. If you do not
believe this can be powerful, try standing at the side of the room and making students come to you
rather than going over to them. Bat your questions over the imaginary net and be ready for replies. This
style is an antidote to the waiter model. Its main feature for students is that it encourages you to use
your voice in different ways. A real trap is to develop a habit of becoming so absorbed with individuals
that your teacher-talk is never made public. If you spend the whole time going round whispering to
students you actually have little presence in the classroom. Bring down the noise level so that you can
talk across the room and be heard encouraging students publicly.

Snake charmer, This is a style which some teachers see as an ideal. You appear to be playing exactly the
right kind of music and students come out of their baskets, do their work and go back again for the
night, having tidied up. Although this is a stereotype, your aim is to generate a balance of responsibility
and cooperation such that you do not actually need to discipline your class. The snake charmer happens
when the tasks are so engaging, the students so motivated and the teacher is so in control that they can
relax. Naturally, you need to find your own interpretation of this generalized stereotype. There are
many other roles you can find yourself playing, from ‘secondhand crockery seller’, ‘pleading vicar,’ to
‘screaming maniac’ or ‘pest control officer’. Invent your own, and recognize the comic side of teaching if
it helps to get an impossible job back in proportion.

The sample of the case : ini contoh case nya lion tamer, apa pake ini aja atau coba cari case nya snake
charmer ?

Lion tamer by default

Student teacher Mark had a difficult session with his class one Tuesday afternoon early in his practice.
By Thursday he had decided that it was vital to concentrate on discipline or the children would play
him up. Consequently, he was standing no nonsense at the start of the lesson and spoke to the
children in short clipped commands, sounding businesslike and efficient. He wanted to explain how to
draw a plan view of an alarm clock and this would be followed by the children attempting to draw
their plan as they had been shown on the board. Rather aggressively he quietened the class and
persisted in his aggressive control statements (‘Sit still, Shane!’ ‘That means you!’) until he had
silence. A good feature was that he made sure, even through five or six attempts, that he got silence.
Unfortunately he did not lower the volume of his voice, be less aggressive or give praise to anyone. He
still sounded annoyed and maintained the ‘no nonsense’ efficient tone of voice, stopping children as
soon as they tried to speak. He told the children how to draw a ‘top view’ and a ‘plan view’,
illustrating this on the board. No child was asked a question unless there was only one right answer
which could be given. The lesson proceeded with threats, some silent working and further tickings off
for not continuing to draw the plans well enough, inattention or being off-task. Mark sat at the desk
at the front of the room and children brought out their plans for him to check. A queue soon
developed. So did the noise and children who were obscured by the queue began to flick pieces of
paper. Mark began to lose his temper and imposed silence again. Everything depended on Mark’s
ability to keep students working and pounce on every deviation from his set plan. Mark could have
involved students at an early stage in devising criteria for what makes a good plan drawing, discussing
this in small groups. Also, he could have made one of the criteria ‘working well in a group’ thereby
emphasizing self-responsibility, awareness of others and learning to be polite enough to listen to the
other children’s ideas.

The solution given : (BELUM)