A teacher knows everything.
In learning, teachers work as facilitators. They help students with acquiring new things and implementing those new ideas on paper, alongside teachers help the students making the way to use that knowledge in their practical life later.
We all know, teachers need to study a lot. Though they just get a 50-minute class or 1-hour class, they have to research a lot to lead that 50 minutes class. Because when you have to inform others about something, that requires good knowledge over that. If you understand well, only then you can make that easy for your students to understand. Otherwise, you will revolve around and make things difficult for students. For the FYC class, grad student instructors have to go through the same process. They need to study a lot. From my own experience, I can say how many nights I spend on understanding a single topic clearly so that I can quench the thirst of my students. To students, teachers are sources of knowledge. In one sense that’s true. Because teachers spend their lives studying things, they teach. Students have the expectations that their teachers know everything. But that doesn’t work always. It’s impossible for a single person to know everything. However, it is okay to say- I don’t know from teachers' side. That’s reasonable. But for grad instructors to say the same line is something horrible. When I was reading a chapter from Restanio, I found a grad student getting depressed with this thing. She was struggling with saying no and on the other hand, she couldn’t answer accordingly, though she knew the answers. That frustrated her. Obviously, this is something depressing for first-year grad instructors. They already have the fear in mind that students suspect their qualifications and don’t acknowledge the grad students as real teachers sometimes. So, if you come up with the answer “NO”, how they are going to see you. They may question your capabilities as a teacher. These concerns frustrate grad instructors sometimes.
I know this is okay to say ‘I don’t know’. But your intuition at that moment in front of your students may break you down if you can’t think it okay to say 'I don't know".. I know all of you try to get over-prepared before entering a classroom, but even then some unwanted questions may come. I’m not saying questions would be logical always, they can be irrelevant too.
How do you handle that situation? If you haven’t faced any situation like that, what do you think about how you are going to tackle those circumstances?
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