The end is only a new beginning

... after couple of incidents this year ... i remembered a saying about how  the beginnings are always hard, the ends are always sad but what lies in between is all that matters.

The beginning was more than 2 years ago when i started the diploma and the road ends here.

I started as an inexperienced, unconfined, neurotic clueless teacher ... i used to improvise a lot, make more damage than good and even the good stuff i couldn't do again because i did not understand what went right and why!?

if i went back to my final course, the beginning, the struggle, the resistance, the doubt, the anticipation and the joy ;)  these were the most important things ... the whole ride ... the whole learning experience not only the learning material ... as teachers it was always about how we learned not only what we learned.

i can go on and on about what i learned but i have one recent evidence. i have a new student in my year 9 class. this student is transferred from a different school American division and she is having a hard time adopting to the IGCSE system. she misses her friends, her teachers and she does not see the light at the end of the tunnel. last week her mother came to school with a big fat complain concerning the math teacher and that would be me. she complained that she paid money and her daughter had all the right to have a different teacher saying that she did not have a problem with her former math teacher... so she only has me to blame.

all of this is typical and happens every day but the interesting part was my response ... i knew that what i am doing was right , i knew that facilitating her learning was my role, i might be different from her former teacher but i will provide something new to her learning experience  and that spoon feeding and giving her a copy of the exam for grades was not in her best interest. i insisted on my opinion calmly and with a glimpse of a smile on my face. i accepted her frustration and her offensive attitude and all that in the presence of her daughter ... after a long talk she came to realize my genuine concern about her daughter's learning progress.
the more interesting was the reaction of the student the next day ... she came into the class a little worried not able to anticipate my reaction but i was normal and she did fine participating in the new lesson discussions and practice ... at the end of the lesson she addressed me privately and said that i don't have a problem solving each type of problem alone - factorizing polynomials -  but i have a problem figuring out which technique to use. verbally expressing her problem in a positive way opposed to her negative way of thinking was a breakthrough, having her understand and see eye to eye with me made all the difference ... justifying my actions and worries ,reaching out to her and her mother on a personal level made all the difference.

i was never that well informed, i was never that patient, i was never that meticulous about giving examples and diagnosis for each incidence and mistake ... and i have you Dr. Joy to thank for that.

I am 6 times wiser, 6 times calmer, 6 courses more educated and i have 6 instructors to impersonate and make use of their charisma and teaching tricks.

i am at the end of my road but i need to believe that this end is only a new beginning. i believe that i am valuable to my students as long as i get to be a student my self ... i got a taste of what it feels like to be a student and this made be a better teacher.
  

what is wrong??

A group of teachers paying money, time, effort to learn ... what?  and for whom?

we are all graduated, successful working teachers with experience ... what is our ulterior motive to finish our working hours and put more effort instead of having the time to ourselves ??

watching my colleges excited about their projects after trying hard despite of all the challenges... this was something else!

pictures from different schools ... national, experimental and international- were displayed and the only difference was names. I could not differentiate between the classrooms, the uniform, the students, the teachers not even the resources ... even the smiles and the anxiously.

if we are all taking our jobs seriously and willing to spend time with our students trying and trying every possible trick in the book ... and we are from different schools, dealing with different communities yet were are all qualified teachers making the best use of our resources... why is there a problem in our educational system ???
why is it hard to maintain motivation all year long? is there something wrong with the curriculum, is it time constrains or time management? administrative routine?

WHAT IS IT THEN !!?  

difference is the key word !

Our discussions could not be more fruitful even if we tried. talking about what we learned about motivation raised many important flags.

First, the teacher and learner are not necessary seeing eye to eye might be a reason behind the lack of motivation in any learning environment. they both might have different needs and expectations and not meeting those expectations result in demotivating both parties. if teachers know their role as a facilitator of learning and the learner still waits for the teacher to hand him knowledge on a silver plate ... then they are definitely talking different language.

I have the same situation in my class and i could not figure out the problem until i listened to the discussion... my student Y. along with her mother are both having a problem with me and my subject no matter how hard i try to help her she is still waiting for more help in her own way not mine ... the next day i went to the student counselor and told her my conclusion ... she needs spoon feeding and this is not what she is going to get for me unless she is willing to open up for my way of teaching and put some effort into her learning experience we will have an ongoing  problem.

Second, the need to alter the student perspective for their learning needs to be highlighted and established by the teacher at the beginning of each year specially in my case where my students are all new for the British system and the IGCSE in general.

Third, a plate of salad is healthier when it includes more colors and the more colors you have the more vitamins you will receive. students should think of teachers in the same way. each teacher has her own way, her own style and her own color the variation is what makes the learning experience more rich and diverse. if students could stop comparing between their salad ingredients and just enjoy the ride!

Can you imagine yourself as a student learning different subjects from the SAME teacher
... i guess not !

Community Based Learning

in our discussions about community based learning ... we agreed that this learning has to be both ways. learners give to the community and the community gives back.
A question was raised asking what could the community give back to our learners and I responded the feeling of achievement is more than enough !

I could not have been more wrong even if i tried !!

As the discussion went on ... and we started to propose ideas about community based projects, most of the projects circulated around the idea of raising money to the underprivileged.
ideas included adopting poor families and visits to public schools in order to help them and then it hit me "how would this give back to the learner if all we are doing is degrading the human being who happened to be less fortunate or lacking the financial resources to enable him to be a member of the giving community??"  if we keep teaching our students to give just because them have more, this will create a binary community of zeros and ones !
ones= giving and zeros = receiving.

how does giving affect the receiving part? how does the upper hand help in developing the community compared to the sharing hand ? 
how can we engage our students in a community service where they learn how to integrate their resources with others?
how can we engage them into a public service side by side with the public, experimental and language schools students to create a more harmonious community where each member gives and receives learning and help?

If we want a better community we have to highlight the fact that every member has something to give and that we need to compliment each others.

I once ran out of salt and it was too late to buy any ... i asked my Janitor's son for some ... he couldn't be happier to help ... his response was "gladly ... with pleasure" ... given the opportunity to help made him feel good and made us equal- which we are and we should be-

If we can't think of a community based learning where we are all active members of the community giving and receiving ... then don't bother and just keep raising your ones and lowering your zeros! 

justify, apply and encourage

Today i figured out three secret words for engaging learners.

 

As learners we had our concerns about the APA referencing emphasis. But a small sentence was introduced in the session followed by an information i heard from a relative couple of days ago about her masters thesis simply justified it's importance.

secret # 1 JUSTIFY the importance of what you know is importance but the learners can't see eye to eye with you.

Now i know why the APA referencing is important i still could not get where did i go wrong because i simply used the word formatting option for bibliography. Then came the second secret word APPLY. The designed activity along with the sheets came in handy. First i never knew there were that many types of references. Actually filling in the field and recognizing the differences by simply applying the knowledge or doing the activity did help a lot.

While we were simply engaged in doing the task because we were asked to after justified the reason, a gentle whisper was made to a couple of students about their reflection and how they need to master this skill to excel. hence secret number 3 ENCOURAGE. 

So yes if you want to make a difference as a teacher in your learner's perspective all you have to do is Justify by giving reason why, Apply by letting them do the actual task , and Encourage using individual comments for each learned as a feedback on their work.

e-teacher

Although i have graduated from faculty of engineering, i gave up on technology a long time ago. I was either too busy or too lazy to catch up with the revolution. i had a personal computer when I was in college but i felt the need to have a laptop when i started teaching eight years ago.
Back in college i was CONNECTED but now it takes twice the effort and 10 times the time to catch up.
But thinking back at the session if i wanted to be able to speak the same language as my students i need to pick up the pace.
I started the academic year by subscribing to one of the home internet services because all of my siblings live abroad now and i wanted to be CONNECTED, but it does help to be connected to my student via Facebook and their school communication system the e-connect.
I agree that i need my own resource kit if i want to be an e-teacher and this includes a smart phone , a lighter laptop, speakers and scanner BUT i should start with what i have now and take it one step at a time.
The next day i decided to take time to search the internet for resources for my new math lesson "factorizing polynomials". the point is i didn't only come up with a power point for the class or send it via mail or e-connect to save their copying time the point is i had a look at other teachers plan for the lesson, the way they introduced the instructions in a smooth and sequential order. so instead of reinventing the wheel why not simply start where everyone else stopped. I do believe that i need to change from within and embrace the technology in order to use it effortlessly.

Yes i CAN !!

challenged and frustrated with last week's feedback on my paper, i decided to talk to Dr. Joy about it. I felt exactly like my students ... why re-do the work without argument!
The moment i opened my mouth i found the instructor ready and prepared with an extremely smart activity that gave me the answer without saying a word.

I don't know if Dr. Joy used this stretching activity before or how long it took her to come up with such a solid proof evidence that people tend to put more effort and explore their potentials when they are pushed further. the exiting idea was how to convince a student that you are putting him or her through hell just because you believe in his or her potentials and not just for sports. And the impact of this information on a student A.K.A myself is huge ... i know we were supposed to re-do the same reading but when motivated and challenged enough i went the distance and read a new article and did the work from scratch ... not only did i do so but i had help from a fellow English teacher when it came to summary writing.

yes motivation does miracles ... you can change a frustrated student into an eager learner IF and only IF you could tap smoothly into his or her head.

not only that but the energy shift that happened to the whole class was huge.

I really hate to be in the instructor's shoes, she had to plan for an energy altering session- and i know this consumed a lot of thinking from her side but i did enjoy my learning experience. 

If this is what it takes to motivate my learners ... thinking constantly about how to motivate them to get the best out of them... it's definitely worth the thought.

Thanks Dr. Joy for turning back on my learning enthusiasm at the end of the diploma :)

"you can't understand me" ... may be i can't !!?

Sick with common cold, exhausted with the day's traffic, overwhelmed with the day events ... i switched gears from the teaching mode to the learning mode ...but the transition was not as smooth as i hoped.

how could i forget ... something i learned 2 years ago and it made a HUGE difference ... ADOLESCENTS CAN NOT READ FACES LIKE WE DO !! yes i learned this in my 501 course and it did make a difference but it slipped my mind ... and i was wondering the same day how can't one of my girls figure out that i am upset with her sitting inappropriately in class or speaking to me with an attitude ... i remember telling them to avoid me on Sundays and Wednesdays to make it easier for them but that was a Tuesday!

Thank God i remembered.

how hard could this be "you can't understand me" .. a girl saying the i can't understand her ... but yet i was so caught up in my days' events and my student having a trouble understanding the context ... i was totally convinced with my interpretation to the extend that i could not understand the grammar of the sentence ... yes apparently some times when you are a teacher worried with exams and curriculum and grades unfortunately you become too focused on our thoughts that you totally block any other explanation even the simplest ones. i think i should always put their thoughts into considerations and try to be in their shoes like we once were A LONG LOOOOONG TIME AGO !

mmmmm... motivating the unmotivated or the absent minded how frustrating could that be .. we are always talking about the student but how can we motivate the teacher to keep trying and trying and trying and.... trying and hopefully the learner will respond IN HIS OWN TIME .... so yes as frustrating as it might be i guess persistence is the key word.

leave your worries at the classroom door !

yesterday as i was being ready to end my weekend and start my working days ... my son fell at his judo practice and he hurt his chin and broke a tooth... i ran to t he hospital where he had seven stitches.
this was a perfect ending to my weekend .. which means that the next week is totally ruined !! 
i woke up the next day thinking about my son how would he go to school ... would he be able to eat or even talk ... i was too worried to think about anything else ... when he woke up i asked him how he was doing and he said fine but could not eat ... i was too upset that i went work at 7:00 Am i.e 1 hour earlier than my time just to run away from looking at him.
i was the first one to arrive at school ... finished a few paper work then i had a not so pleasant talk with a friend who said that my son will never forgive me because i did not go to a plastic surgeon. i felt weak and a little feverish and the minutes were too slow for the first session to begin.
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.... then the bell rang ... i took my copybooks and walked to my first class ... knocked at the door and said "besm allah al ra7man al ra7im" " In the Name of Allah"   and entered... and suddenly i was someone else i was not the worried sick mum i was simply the teacher... i started talking to the girls about our project updates and how we will have a difficulty going to a bank at the regular working hours ... thought of some ideas to solve this but we needed the principle's approval ... i started to write today's objectives and i started my lesson... i was patient as i would be in one of my good mode episodes ... i was enthusiastic about warping all the objectives ... the student's had plenty of time to ask and solve and correct their work .. i even assigned them homework ... it was one of the good days although the lesson was somewhat theoretical with little applications.
and then came the next two sessions it was a boys class ... we laughed at the beginning, commented on some marks for the last quiz  and then it took me just 10 minutes to explain the lesson and they took the rest of the 90 minutes working like crazy in a quest to finish their classwork assignment and it's feedback too.

to cut a long story short ... as soon as i started to look at my classroom and my students as the perfect getaway of my headache ... i felt soooo happy and alive .... i felt that this is my kingdom ... my private space ... or may be my personal playing area :)
the moment i entered my class i decided to put everything behind me and leave it at the door ... at the end of the session i felt happy with my achievement that i told the story to my friends and told them "could you tell that there was something wrong with me ??" ... they said No... and then it hit me .... PROFESSIONAL ... this is what the word means!

The beginning

When i was a teenager i thought i wanted to be a mechanics ... you know the typical tom boy ... and as a means to full fill my dreams as well as my father's –of becoming a doctor- I joined faculty of engineering biomedical department.
As a department among other departments we were mocked for being  somewhere between a doctor and an engineer. As years went by … my faculty experience was a mixture of fun and work … I enjoyed my five years tremendously  … I  made good friends and graduated with a "good" grade and "excellence" project.
I then worked in the R&D department of the CASBEC center of advanced systems and biomedical engineering consultations … at the faculty of engineering…. Doing WHAT … I was an ICDL INSTRUCTOR ..... clue #1 !!!!
I remember the doctor in charge saying to me "I don't know how to read you … but it seems you don't actually know what you want yet"   … this was 13 years ago … a very insightful man i have to say.
and days went buy with me accomplishing nothing as an engineer but always excel in whatever i do even if it was a PowerPoint presentation for my boss.
then the opportunity presented itself for me to apply for an e-commerce diploma for 6 months sponsored by ministry of communication and IBM. i said goodby to my job and enjoyed being a student again. and INSTRUCTOR ... clue #2!!!!

Then came the major life altering experience ... MARRIAGE ! followed by getting PREGNANT ... but in Triplets . i stayed home doing absolutely nothing -other than managing my little school of three -for 2 and a half years and on the verge of madness i got an offer to teach in a new school where my kids would join nursery class.

i should feel happy by now .. since my whole career circulated around teaching as a profession... but yet it did not hit me right away.
 
For four years i did the job... as good as i could with no proper training just driven by my personal instinct to excel in what i do.

Then it finally hit me i needed to change the school in a quest to search for my professional values.

As soon as i started applying for teaching jobs in couple of schools ... going through personal interviews and demos ... i heard praise that i was a teacher by nature ... i got accepted and began my teaching career from the very beginning with an eagerness to learn.
for the first year I was willing to do extra administrative tasks to be close to my senior and absorb all her skills ... i even taught her a trick or two ;)

Then i joined the AUC teaching diploma and it has been a journey of  evolution that started with the first course.
learning about adolescence and the psychology behind all their action was the first key to a smiling understanding teacher's personality ... something i wasn't !
teaching strategies and resources were couple of keys to an empowered teacher ... and so it went ... five interesting enjoyable and challenging courses that made me more of a learner than a teacher and that made all the difference ... I became my students ...i know what they want what they like .....what they feel when they were bored ....frustrated... tired ... i even got the taste of what an A student feel when i ignore him to give a chance to those who don't know !!!
but the trick is i Knew what they needed and i Had the tool to give it to them.

so yes i was a nobody as an engineer and i became somebody as a teacher ... i was lost not knowing who i was and what i wanted and know i found myself feeling alive every time i touch a student's soul and mind.

brain storm !

Yesterday's session was quite interesting … first I had a taste of what I like best about the AUC Teaching diploma in general which is getting to share my experiences and thoughts with fellow teachers. So talking within the group discussing our response to the questions was enlightening. I can never get enough of these talks !

Second the fact that we got to talk in pairs about our ideas about projects and we got to compare and adjust our thoughts according to the feedback we had from each other. 

Pairing with lamis was definitely an added bonus … she's a sweetheart.

Last but not least … Dr. Joyane's idea about presenting all the projects to the class and voting and maybe adjusting some of them … actually gave us opportunity to end up with a group of thoughts simply applicable for different subjects and can be performed by many grades.

In fact I liked our discussions of the project ideas with class members ... I discussed mine today in my class… I asked the students to give me feedback about couple of ideas I had and I explained how I need the project to be motivating to them and relate family and community and they picked the "interests and banking project" I presented yesterday. 

So I think that to ensure a project's success … we should look for ideas from learners to guarantee motivation.