In the short story Ms. Awful, there are two different teachers, Ms. Wilson and Ms. Orville. Ms. Wilson is the students’ original teacher that left for a week. Ms. Orville is the substitute teacher for her. They have different teaching styles, with Ms. Wilson being the fun, relaxing teacher, and Ms. Orville being the very strict teacher. Personally I am also a teacher, and I try to be strict while having fun. So, what is the best method of teaching, and what are their impacts?
First, we have the teaching style of making it fun. Making the class fun has some helpful benefits that could also be a little bad. If the class is fun, the lessons would be more engaging but time-consuming. Making it engaging makes students focus more and guarantees that they will get better scores on tests. But, being time-consuming, kids might miss out on activities like recess. On the bad side, teachers that allow toys like squishes, fidget toys, and slime can make students not pay attention as much. So, I would not go with that for the long term.
Furthermore, being both strict and fun is another nice method not used by a lot of teachers because it is hard to maintain for a long period of time. It would have the same benefits as being engaging to the students, but it would require the teacher to be on the lookout for students that are not paying attention. This is super hard as if you are managing a class of 24 kids you have a pretty hard time multitasking all these things. I personally tried this on a group of 9 between the ages of 8 – 14 years old. It was hard multitasking, and I ended up having to extend the class a little longer. I would try to use it half of the time, but not always.
Lastly, being very strict like Ms. Orville would feel like school is horrible, but if you pay attention, it would be super rewarding. I had a teacher in 4th grade barking out “why the heck did you get a 6/10 on your spelling test” or “you should be in second grade with this work”. Honestly, I took a lot from that class because I was focusing, and was on top of the class. It felt great because the teacher was applauding me while shaming other people so I liked it as a student. I feel that this would make kids very disciplined for the time that they have this teacher, but it will wear off after they get a different teacher. I would not recommend it unless if your class is very behind or is not focusing and use it temporarily.
To sum it up, I like all of these methods but I would prefer to use one or another depending on what situation it is. I would prefer being in the middle so the class will be enjoyable and disciplined.