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!