Sima - views from abroad

Read Sima's experiences  working in Iran and Hong Kong and share your own.

My name is Sima Rutherford.  I have been working in the field of education for 20 years.  I have a PGCE (Post Graduate Certificate of Education), and a Master’s degree in Education, with reference to Special Educational Needs.

I have a wide range of teaching experience, encompassing primary and secondary education in different countries: Persia, Hong Kong and England, teaching Special Educational Needs and English as an additional language.

I worked as a SENCo, (Special Educational Needs Co-ordinator), in my last job. As a SENCo, I was responsible for co-coordinating the whole teaching and learning aspect at my school, particularly for children with special educational needs, as well as gifted and talented children.

I am very excited to be a part of online teaching at Middlesex University, and ‘Hot Seat Discussion’, and am looking forward to meeting many of you online!

Here I would like to share some of my teaching experiences in different countries, and invite you to share your experiences with us.
It would be great to read your comments.

As I mentioned I taught in Persia, Hong Kong and Britain.  In Hong Kong I taught in different schools, with completely different curriculums, and I needed to respect their way of teaching, whether I believed it was suitable and fair on pupils or not. I shall start from the beginning of my teaching career.

In Persia (Iran), I started teaching in 1982.  In my country the government pays student teachers very generously, but instead they expect you to work for five years, wherever they ask you to.

I was appointed to a very very cold part of the country, (North West), in a little village rather far from the main road.  There was no road for cars, to get to the main road, no water or electricity!  We had the most beautiful little village with lovely spring water, and used oil lamps, and I used a lot of candles.  We had to travel by a lorry, a donkey or a horse for nearly an hour to get to the main road, and then use other kinds of transport.

Pupils used to walk from dawn for hours in order to come to our village for school, as they were living in smaller places, where there was no secondary school.  Some had a small primary school.

People were poor but extremely happy; it was a powerful conscience.  I enjoyed my job so much.  There I had to teach all the humanities subjects, whether I was trained to teach them or not!  Simply because the government could not afford to pay for teachers of all subjects.

We were only a handful of teachers teaching everything. We all complained to begin with, but in no time we realized that what is so important for that village is their well-being and the fact that they have a secondary school.  What we teach them is a bonus.

We only had equivalent to three first years of a secondary school.  Sometimes we had to alter the content of our books.  E.g  The books might  talk about library, television or cinema and although we explained to our pupils what those things are we needed to use materials within their own experience also.
Some children would sleep during the lesson, not because it was very boring but because they had left their own village so early to get to school and they were extremely tired.

In Iran we have books for each subject, which the government provide for pupils, and the teacher teaches whatever there is in that book.  Those days children learnt a lot of subjects by just memorizing them, rather than learning them. I  tried not to just stick to those books that were provided.  I did my best for my pupils to learn what I taught rather than just memorizing it.

I then came to England in 1986, and started teaching in 1992. I will now explain some differences between the two system of teaching, between England and Iran.

The style of teaching was very different. It is not as strict as Iran.  Teachers and pupils have more freedom in teaching and learning.  We ask pupils to learn mostly rather than memorizing the lessons.  We try to teach the reason behind everything.  

Teaching in England could have been ideal only if there were not so many pupils in a classroom or they had a bit more respect for the teacher!

In Tehran, I have taught classes of fifty pupils in my teaching practice without encountering discipline problems; pupils learnt to respect adults, especially teachers. To some extent, in England, there seems to be considerably less respect for adults, and more notably for teachers. It was certainly challenging, therefore, to teach thirty pupils in one classroom with varying abilities.

 In Iran, there were examinations every term.  If one failed an exam in any subject, they would be asked to repeat that subject in the Summer. Failing that, the whole year would then be repeated. While I am not proposing such a system, the balanced ability found each year illustrates its merits. It is not such a wide range of abilities in one classroom; not like England.

I have taught in London for many years now. It is significant that London is  a uniquely cosmopolitan area, because I have taught classes of thirty pupils, where merely seven spoke English as their first language. Although they are of a similar age, the fact that they are very different in everything else makes teaching very challenging indeed.

I taught in Hong Kong in an English School Foundation. While the curriculum was the same as in  England, teaching was, to a  large extent, more pleasurable because of the smaller class sizes.

In HK, I taught in Singaporean School, where they followed The Singapore curriculum.  Teaching methods were similar to Iran: old fashioned and extremely strict.   A great deal of homework was given and we had no problem with discipline in the classroom.

Moreover, I have also taught in Canadian and American schools, with very different curriculums. Yet not long enough to be able to judge them.

It would be great for all of you to share your experience with the rest of us.

Many thanks,

Sima Rutherford