Role Perception at Schools - Case Study Example

Introduction To begin with, the term role perception is a combination of two words which in unison refer to an individual’s view as far as a given situation is concerned. The view of one particular situation may vary from one person to another. On the other hand, self-identity refers to the holistic understanding an individual has about him/herself. This includes an individual’s understanding of personality attributes such as one’s abilities, hobbies, skills, potential just but to mention some.

To conclude on the definition of terms, the term self-image is used to infer one’s idea with regard to their personality, abilities and appearance. In other words, an individual who understands his/her self-image understands what other people think that he/she is (Higgins, Pg 59). The perception a teacher has towards a given role is greatly determined by the extent to which he or she understands themselves in terms of both self-identity and self-image. As a teacher, one can be given a given set of roles which include monitoring student’s performance and discussing concerns with guardians/parents where necessary, putting into considerations learners’ needs as far as syllabus needs are concerned, assessment of learners through issuing of tests, timely marking, returning and revising of Continuous Assessment Tests (CATs), takeaways and class exercises, ensuring learners remain disciplined among other roles.

The way a teacher will perceive any of these roles will determine how concerned he/she will be when it comes to taking care of them. A positive perception of a given role is very important since it acts as a stimulant in making the teacher enjoy carrying it out. For example, if a teacher is assigned the role of being in charge of sports in a school, he/she has not only have to tell learners to put on game-skits and go to the field to play. If he/she is someone who perceives his/her role positively, then he/she will be even willing to get in the field with the learners and if possible, show a participatory involvement.

Positive role perception is very important since it does not only help the learners but even the teacher him/herself together with the entire staff. At the individual level, it will eventually help the teacher get motivated and in the long run improve his efficiency when it comes to playing a given role (Higgins, 223). This will help curb the conflicts that would otherwise arise as a result of teacher X failing to effectively implement his role hence interfering with teacher Y’s role. A good example of this scenario can be seen when an English teacher fails to ensure that his/her students know how to read well.

This will end up affecting the Mathematics teacher since he will have trouble with the learners for not being able to do some computations due to their inability to read and comprehend the instructions of a given computation. In so doing, other staff mates will get to know each one of the two teachers in terms of their individual abilities and personality hence building a certain image, which will, at the end of the day, make them (the two conflicting teachers) know how other people (teachers) look at them hence, something which will eventually help them form certain self-images.

A bad self-image will not only affect the teacher but will affect greatly one’s performance. This is especially when the individuals start asking themselves questions of who they really are and the only answers they end up with are those portraying their bad side. As seen in the preceding paragraph, role perception, self-image and self-identity are interdependent and hence, compromising with one of them will result in a whole chain of issues which will affect the learning environment. Positive role perception, self-image or self-identity will present a conducive learning environment to the students.

This is because there will be reduced or no cases of role-related conflicts amongst teachers, or between the students and the teachers. A teacher who appreciates his role helps learners in believing in what he teaches/tells them to do. On the other hand, if students find out that a teacher does not seem comfortable in playing a certain role, one of the possible conclusions they are likely to draw is that the teacher is not competent in that given area. This makes them loose their trust in him hence affecting their performance.

A well-organized teacher will ensure a smooth running of all the classroom activities scheduled to be carried out by his/her students. This range of activities includes ensuring that the classroom is clean throughout, students observing silence even when the teacher is not around, timely tackling and submission of assignments for marking among others. In so doing, the teacher would have helped in creating a favorable learning environment that will result in learners’ good performance. This self-organization of a teacher emanates from a clear understanding of one’s self-identity and self-image (Higgins, Pg. 77). Knowledge of a teacher’s own-role perception is very important to him/her as an individual to the students and to the colleagues.

A good understanding of a teacher’s perception towards a given role will enable him or her know whether he/she will be comfortable taking up the role in question or not (Higgins, 45). If not, he will be able to present the person allocating (could be the principal, head of department or anyone else) the roles with an alternative. This will ensue that one does something he enjoys or knows best how to do, thus ensuring optimum performance and as a result, this will result in other teachers and learners getting to know and appreciate the personality and skills of a given teacher hence resulting in a positive image building hence improving one’s self-image.

This will enable him (the teacher in question), comfortably answer the question; “How do people view me/Who do people say I am?” There is no doubt that the answers will be positive and consequently, these (answers) will help him/her narrow down to answer another question; “who am I?” There is therefore a great meaning that underlies a teacher’s awareness of his/her role perception (Higgins, 22) As seen from the previous sections of this document, role perception ought not to be underestimated.

A teacher’s role perception will be manifested in the way he/she plays that particular role. Teacher may be advised to strive and understand their individual role perception but in the case of student’s, teacher perception is almost automatic. This in other words will means students will get to know the teacher and hence come up their own impression about him/her. If he/she is someone who enjoys playing his role the better but if not, then it will mean the students will come up with a bad picture of him/her.

This may be through them withdrawing their trust from him since they may view him as incompetent hence not suited to handle them. If not taken care of, teachers may suffer the effect of students’ perception. For instance if a teacher is entrusted with the role of teaching the students how to draw but eventually students end up finding that the teacher cannot make even a simple drawing, they will eventually not pay much attention in the course of the lesson. This may characterized by students making noise, dozing, not taking notes and even not repeating after the teacher when asked to.

This will make the teacher get frustrated and as a result develop a bad perception towards carrying out the role of teaching in that particular class. Others perception towards a given teacher who is from a different culture may result in that teacher hating playing that role. For instance, white teacher from America given the role of teaching students from one of the East African countries Kiswahili (a language spoken by some East African Countries) may not be perceived positively by the learners since they may not trust him.

The way in which a teacher perceives a given role can be improved through being given a clear outline of what the role in question entails (Higgins, 51). After taking up a given role, the teacher has to be given any necessary support by the administration before being left on his own. Development and enhancement of role perception can be done by providing a working environment for the teacher to perform his role effectively. For instance, a class teacher who initially had a bad perception about doing that job (being a class teacher) but has finally changed his perception and decided to become one, can be given support by providing him with a register, class cleaning equipment, CAT Mark Entry Forms among other things.

This will help him/her develop and enhance his positive role perception of being a class teacher. Management of a teacher’s perception can be done by the school head doing role re-allocation with respect to an individual’s view and later on, he/she (school head), making a follow up to ensure that specific roles are being played with respective teachers accordingly. Reference Higgins, E. Tory. "The" self-digest": self-knowledge serving self-regulatory functions." Journal of personality and social psychology 71.6 (1996): 1062.