One of the most heard and "internalised" word so to say in past few months for me is Backward planning. Yes, as we fellows have limited time in the classrooms, we try to plan rigorously to achieve our daily, weekly or monthly goals.You have to create Unit, weekly and daily plans for sure.It gives you a basic structure and framework around which you work to achieve the mastery over certain objectives. As per my exp. as a teacher one surely must gave a clear idea in mind. The thought process over a period of time should be focused. To break it even more, one must have a logical,sequential and most importantly simple process to follow over a period of time. Too many changes never help students. As they take their own time to get in terms with ongoing activities.
Patience is one quality which you will defo. learn here. The processes/strategies you design to increase the student achievement in classroom take time, specially when you are working with primary grade level students.
Basically if i draw a parallel, teacher is like a sales man; Topic/objective is like a product..and consumer is the student. But as in market we all say Consumer is the king, Sadly in our schools, students have no say in the process. In a classroom there are different kind of students as there are different types of consumers.
As a salesman designs his pitch as per the consumer, a teacher also needs to apply differentiation when it comes to teaching a class of 50 kids.
As a teacher my biggest learning,the point when things started changing for me( its still in process) is this very fact of understanding the expectation of a kid from me and then balancing my expectations with that.
Teacher must understand what a student expect from him/her. What a student expects out of 6 hrs of school time? What goes on in a young 7 year old mind when one concept after another is bombarded on him? what is his struggle when he cant read normal english story, when he is not able to score marks in a very simple test?
So as some one has rightly said, EDUCATION IS LEARNING,NOT TEACHING. A teacher must learn with his/her students. Teaching all the times sometimes hides the basic essence of education.Trust me, i have learnt alot from my young devils.(specially about the latest cartoons from NInja hatodi to choota bheem..from BEN 10 to many more..) They think...But for that a teacher must first allow,ask and encourage them to do the same.
