Global challenge

Global challenge

Prof/ Walid El-gohary

English Supervisor, Editor-in-chief

What do you think about these two ways to cut a tree?

 

 

One man is working hard, but isn't making progress.
The other is working smart, and is getting results!

"Students may not remember what you taught them, but they'll remember how you made them feel".

Teaching is truly a wonderful profession whose rewards cannot be measured by a simple paycheck. However, in order to appreciate and enjoy this fulfilling career one must first receive tenure. This report was written for the purpose of helping people achieve tenure.

Learning to be a teacher is a long and complex journey full of excitement and challenge.  It begins with the many experiences we have with our parents and siblings; it continues as we observe teacher after teacher through 16 to 20 years of schooling. It culminates, formally, with professional training but continues through a lifetime of teaching experiences.

Teaching offers a bright and rewarding career for those who can meet the intellectual and social challenges of the job. Despite the recent spate of reports critical of school and teachers, most citizens continue to support our schools and express their faith in education. The task of teaching the young is simply too important and complex to be handled entirely by parents or through the informal structures of earlier eras. Modern society needs schools staffed with expert teachers to provide instructions and to care for children while adults work.

In our society teachers are given professional status. They are expected to use best practice to keep students learn essential skills and attitudes. It is no longer sufficient for teachers to be warm and loving towards children nor is it sufficient for them to employ teaching practices based solely on intuition, personal preference, or conventional wisdom. Contemporary teachers are held accountable for using teaching practices that have been shown to be effective. This article aimed at helping beginning teacher master the knowledge base and the skills required of a professional.

Also, I want to explore another side of teaching: the art of teaching. Like most human endeavors, teaching has aspects that can't be copied or guided by scientific knowledge alone but instead depend on a complex set of individual judgments based on personal experiences.

Historical respective on teaching:                                         

                                         

Conceptions of teaching reflect the values and social philosophy of the large society, and as these changes so too does society's view of its teachers.

In the past, teachers were mainly middle class who chose to teach while they prepared for a more well-paid line of work.

Effective teaching:                                                                     

     Central to the process of learning to teaching are views about the primary goals of teaching and definitions of an effective teacher. The goals of teaching in a complex society are diverse, and trying to define an effective teacher has long occupied the thoughts of many. Some have argued that an effective teacher is one who can establish rapport with students and a nurturing, caring environment for personal development. Others have argue that an effective teacher is one who can activate students energy to work towards a more just and human social order.

The content of a teacher education curriculum is itself a statement about what effective teachers need to know.

The ultimate goal of teaching:

Citizens in a diverse and complex society such as ours expect their schools to accomplish many different goals. For example: teaching basic academic skills, building student self-esteem, preparing students for college, promoting global understanding, preparing students for work, transmitting our cultural heritage. The multiple purposes of education cab become overwhelming unless teachers can focus their teaching goals. Learning to teach takes the positions that the ultimate purpose of teaching is to assist students to become independent and self-regulated learners. This purpose doesn't negate other purposes of education but instead it serves as an overteaching goal under which all other goals and teacher activities can be placed. This primary purpose stems from two underlying assumptions. One is the contemporary view that knowledge is not entirely fixed and transmitted but is something that all individuals, students and adults alike, activity construct through personal experience. The second is the prespective that most important thing is that students should learn is how to learn.

A view of the effective teacher:

   Effective teaching requires as its base line individuals who are academically able, who have command of the subjects they are required to teach, and who care about the well-being of children and youth. It also requires individuals who can produce results, mainly those of students academic achievement and social learning, but they are insufficient without the following attributes:

1- Effective teachers have personal qualities that allows them to develop authentic human relationships with their students, parents, and colleges and to create democratic classrooms for children and adolescents.

2- Effective teachers have positive dispositions towards knowledge.

They have command of at least three board knowledge bases that deal with subject matter, human development and learning, and pedagogy. They use knowledge to guide the science and art of their teaching practice.

3- Effective teachers are personally disposed toward reflection and problem solving. They consider learning to teach a lifelong process, and they can diagnose situations and enhance student learning and to improve schools.

Personal qualities for developing authentic relationships:

For many years, people believed that teacher's personal qualities were the most important attributes for effective teaching. In general, teachers who were warm and loving were thought to be more effective than those who were perceived to be cold and aloof. Like most beliefs, this one had a measure of truth to it. It also left an incomplete picture, because effective teaching requires much more that being warm and loving towards children.

   Our perspective encompasses a view that it is important for teachers to have caring dispositions towards children and youth and to believe in the abilities of all children to learn. It also encompasses the view that teachers must process sufficient

interpersonal and group skills to establish authentic relationships with their students and their colleges. It is from these relationships that students 'motivation to engage in learning is maximized. Similarly, it is from authentic relationships with colleges that school-wide goals are developed and accomplished.

To sum up :

Put your heart in your job

Teaching is the mission of the Prophets. Teaching is much more demanding than other jobs because teachers deal with brains and hearts. Teaching is challenging because teachers need to have not only the knowledge and skills but most importantly the patience and tolerance. That is why we don’t hear many people say that they love teaching. To succeed in teaching, you need to put your heart in your job. You need to love what you are doing. You may feel that it is a stressful, tiring, and exhausting career, but when you know that your status has been elevated to that of the Prophets, you know how noble and blessed your mission is. Many studies have shown that when teachers talk to each other and share their successes and failures, they become more successful in their teaching and love their career. Whenever possible, visit your colleagues’ lessons and discuss your experiences, so that you learn from each other how to be good teachers

Feel free to comment on the above statement. You may also address any of the following questions: Do you have time to visit your colleagues’ lessons? How often do you visit their lessons? What are some of the things you learned from them? Have you ever thought about quitting teaching? Why? What are other things teachers could do to make teaching a more interesting career? Etc

It is impossible to know everything about teaching before we become teachers. Most of our teaching skills come from our own (and others’) experiences. Today I wanted to share with you four things we should know as teachers

Relate to your students. Research your students, and know what they like and don’t like. Talk to them from time to time, not about learning, but about themselves. Get to know them, so that you establish good rapport with them. Even if you are the best teacher in the world, your students’ attitude towards you and your teaching is a huge factor in the success of the entire teaching-learning process.

Teaching is a journey of discovery. Do not stress out yourself if certain days were not as rosy as other days. Keep good spirit, and learn from bad teaching days what went wrong, so that you avoid it in the future

Communicating with families/parents is crucial. This might be difficult in Egypt, but not impossible. I know many teachers who are doing excellent job communicating with the parents and updating them frequently on the progress of their kids. Do not involve parents only when there is a problem. You have the student for a few hours but they have them for the rest of the day.

Make your colleagues and the principal your allies. Good relationship, cooperation, and mutual respect between you and everybody in the school will make your teaching life much easier and smoother

I am sure that you, as a teacher, are an expert on this. So please share with us some more tips from your daily teaching life.

A last word to Know:

According to Harmer, J. that if there is not a good relationship between a teacher and students, their language won't be improved.

Therefore, the availability of a good rapport within the classroom refers to an expert teacher.

Enjoying the journey is something delightful .. many things could be discovered everyday .. just teachers need to keep reforming their ideas about that .. and look at the right and bright side ..