Am I worth the bill?

     There have been many teacher educators and each one of them has different perspectives and theories of how to about teaching.  Being a teacher myself for the last two decades, I often think of the methods I employ in classrooms to transfer the contents to my students.  I realize that, to my shock, I have rarely made use of any Teaching methods, approaches and techniques prescribed in pedagogical textbooks. I have always gone in my own way which has no connections of whatsoever kind with those AMTs (approaches, methods and techniques).  Mine is, I feel, purely personalized – solely depended on my personality.  There are times I feel that a teacher is nothing but a drama.  He is, in other words, a performing artist.  He got to be damn good at it. 

     Very recently, I was invited by an institution to talk to its teachers on teaching.  My talk was based on the points listed below.  Some of the teachers agreed with these in toto, some of them in parts and still others did not with any of these.  They felt that these are too subjective.  But, what to do?  After, I always deal with ‘subjects’.

01. GET TO KNOW THE STUDENTS

To know your students is to make your job easy and effective.  The ‘comfort zone’ you maintain with your student clients help you establish professionalism in the classroom.  Our profession is learning facilitation.

02. CREATE CONFIDENCE

Students come from various social, economic and cultural backgrounds.  They come from different mediums of instructions too.  They enter college for the first time.  Create and nurture confidence in them.  Subject knowledge can wait.

03. LISTEN TO YOUR STUDENTS

Confidence is gained while expressing one’s ideas.  Make them speak.  Let them tell you about themselves, or anything they like.  Give them a patient hearing.  When they know you care to listen to them, they respect you.  Goal is half achieved.

04. BE AN EXPERT IN WHAT YOU TEACH

When the learning climate is set, start teaching your subject.  Students, however weak in their intellect, are blessed with an insight to recognize real merits of a teacher. When you teach well, they know it.  When you don’t teach well, they know it too.

05. HAVE YOU DONE YOUR HOMEWORK?

Venturing into classroom without preparation is to start a business without capital.  The business is bound to fail.  There is nothing worse than cutting a sorry figure of yourself in the presence of your students.  Do your homework thoroughly.

06. BE DEMOCRATIC

It is reliably learnt now that interactive and participative classrooms are the most productive classrooms.  Don’t try to be pedantic [in the manner of an all-knowing expert] and didactic [in a propagating way] in your approach.  Involve them while you develop the content.

07. ARRANGE YOUR PRESENTATION

Do you have a plan of your delivery?  Delivery is as important as conception.  Be time conscious.  Be strategy conscious. Be content conscious.  And, be student conscious.  A well-planned class is a whole, complete in itself.

08. MAKE SURE IF LEARNING TAKES PLACE

Design Formative Assessment Tasks at the appropriate places during your lecture.  The faculty needs to be informed and creative to design his own FA Tasks.  FA is pedagogy. Summative Assessment [SA] is evaluation. 

09. YOU ARE NOT A CONSULTANT BUT A COUNSELOR

You are not a professional consultant who charges a whopping fee to throw a few tips at his client.  Students are your concern.  They are your duty.  They are your profession.  What you make out of them is what you make out of you.  Be available to redress their grievances. 

10. AVAIL ALL THE HELP YOU CAN

Teaching is not any more a one man job.  To facilitate learning, technology has given way to many assisting tools.  Avail as many of them as possible.  Just make sure that they are appropriate in the given context.  Technology is not for technology’s sake.  They are for the sake of learning and growing.

11. TALK TO THEIR MIND, NOT OVER THEIR HEADS

What you know is not important.  What is important is what your students come to know from you. “HOW” is as vital as “WHAT”.  Talk in their ‘language’.  DINAMANI failed whereas DHINATHANTHI is a huge hit with the mass.   Connectivity is everything in teaching.

12. YOUR SCHEDULE COULD BE FLEXIBLE AS LONG AS IT IS PRODUCTIVE

A faculty is an empowered expert.  He is not a word-minting machine that works to a set command. You can be flexible in terms of content covering, strategies adopted, evaluation methods, etc.  Just make sure that your flexibility is for productivity.

13. ARE YOU COMMITTED?

Teaching is not any more a six-hour job.  It is 24X7.  When you ignite a spark, the mind can start burning at any moment.  When it burns, be there to stoke it.  The fire that is not stoked is as good as a deadwood.

14. ARE YOU A HAPPY TEACHER?

None is more dangerous than an unhappy teacher.  When you don’t enjoy teaching that is infectious.  The students won’t enjoy their learning too.  Teaching is not the only means to survive.  I won’t remain a teacher if I don’t want to be one. Teaching is my choice. For you?

15. I AM OKAY, YOU ARE OKAY

Develop the mindset that you are a contributor.  Not a contractor.  There is so much to give these young minds.  Find out that real happiness lies in giving, not in taking.  When you give, you produce. When you take, you consume.  Be an important chunk in the chain of man-making process.