Teaching is hard

It’s just hard when students are gone

You don’t know how much new content to teach when they’re away, and how to get them caught up afterwards

V or Volatility is about the nature and dynamics of change, and rapidly changing contexts and conditions. Say for instance when a teacher needs to change student disciplining strategies because disciplinary measures taken earlier cannot be used now.

U or Uncertainty is about the lack of predictability, the prospects for surprise, due often to some missing data, say sudden and unforeseen behavioural change in students that a teacher has to cope with in class, as a result of having taken some disciplinary measures

C or Complexity is the interconnectedness of cause-and-effect forces, or multiple factors difficult to categorize or control, say for example, the degree of severity deemed appropriate when correcting misbehaviour in students

A or Ambiguity is vague data, subject to multiple interpretation and the mixed meanings of conditions. A teacher may be confronted with parents’ intervention related to student disciplining, which she reads as ‘interference’ and there are ambiguities.