Reflection

The following post is actually a university reflective writing assignment that I had to submit but I have also decided to submit tis to my blog as I believe it is a great insight into me... I hpoe you enjoy it... oh, and yes, I recieved a very good mark from it... (please note that the name of my teacher 'Mr. T' is not his real name - just trying to keep his idenity private!)....

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Throughout my career as a student my aim has always been directed at becoming a teacher. The realisation into why had never occurred to me until 2001, when I suffered an emotional breakdown and decided to repeat year 10. At my admission interview, Mr. T the teacher who would from that day forth train me to become a self directed learner told me that my success could only be guaranteed by myself. If I didn’t want to succeed then I wouldn’t, but if I did want to he could see great things ahead for me. He then promised that as my teacher he would be an aide to my success, a stepping stone to greater heights if I wanted it. I just needed to show my own direction.

In the school environment, Mr. T was first in charge. His role also extended to the classroom and he taught two classes in the areas of mathematics and science extended. I was fortunate to be involved with both of his teaching roles but his impact as a teacher and a leader defiantly penetrated the walls of his classroom. Mr. T challenged us both inside and outside the classroom to achieve at our best. He encouraged this by being actively involved in our lives as students and providing for us a foundation to build our own success on. We became aware of ourselves as learners and took this new awareness to all aspects of our lives. There is not one memory of Mr. T’s classroom being off task or out of order. Amazingly he not only had the ability to draw his students to attention, but to the attention of themselves in the learning environment. Mr. T was successful in establishing an environment where his students wanted to learn because he made them aware that they were capable achieving if they wanted to. Inattentiveness and misbehaving students were never a problem in his classroom because he had made us value ourselves as learners and his students responded by doing the only thing that he asked us to achieve and that was to become active self learners.

Metcalfe & Game (2006) suggests that an effective teacher has the ability to change our lives so that we become ourselves. My learning experience with Mr. T helped to realise the true potential of my knowledge as a learner, so as to carry this knowledge to all aspects of study and achieve to my highest standards.  Mr. T knew that he could not control or change what went on in our lives outside of the classroom. The different thing about his approach to this was that he made no exceptions for failure as a learner because of other life implications. He taught us that the only one that was in control of our learning was each individual. As individual learners he challenged us to explore different experiences in our own lives to enhance our school work and our school community. His passion for teaching conveyed to us passion to become great learners.

To their students, teachers are a representation of the adult world. Next to their parents, teachers are the strongest guides into the world of adulthood. (Ayers, 2001). Mr. T challenged us to be responsible for our own learning. Failure in his classroom only accounted to your own reluctance to participate in your own success. This skill to be self-aware of my own learning has attributed too many of my life successes, both in and out of the classroom. In challenging us to learn for ourselves, Mr. T provided us with the necessary skills to continue to become life long learners in all aspects of life. J Dewey believed that having the associated skills involved with self-directed learning enables students to best be prepared for the “demands of responsible membership of a democratic community”. (Hill, pp.4 2006)

Teaching and learning are a complex process to which the teacher is not always in control. (Killen, 2007) Mr. T was an effective teacher because he was capable of teaching his students to become learners. In becoming learners, students are then able to apply their knowledge to solve problems, communicate to others, create new knowledge from existing understanding and have a desire to want to learn more. Students need to be in control of their own learning as teachers can not learn for their students. Killen (2007) talks about learner self regulation were strategies are taught to help students to direct their behaviour and attempts to learn. He goes on to suggest that self regulated students perform better than those students who do not use self-regulation practices. Mr. T made us aware of this important issue by helping us to understand that by becoming efficient learners we were creating a prosperous future for ourselves. He had engaged us to become self regulated learners without us actively thinking about it.

The impact that Mr. T has made on my life as a learner and as a future teacher turned my life in a new direction. Not only did he influence me to keep my future direction focused on teaching, he also helped me to understand that I was capable of learning. The anxiety that had for so long held me back from achieving academically had disappeared with Mr. T’s focus on each individual student as individual learners. Before my encounter with Mr. T’s teaching style I thought that being a teacher meant being in control of students learning, of standing at the front of a classroom and being the supplier of information. I now know and believe that effective teaching doesn’t just involve knowledge about how to be a teacher or about the subjects you may be teaching. Effective teaching involves the teacher being a facilitator of learning, of providing an environment where your students are guided to learn but where you as the teacher steps back and allows them to do so. (Killen, 2007) In conclusion, Mr. T has greatly influenced my decision to become a teacher so as I can carry on his enthusiasm and passion for our future generations to become life long learners, because learning is the key to a greater, socially aware society.

References

Ayers, W. (2001). To teach: The journey of a teacher (2^nd ed.) New York: Teachers College Press.

Hill, S. (2006) Developing early literacy: assessment and teaching. Eleanor Curtain Publishing

Killen, R. (2007). Effective teaching strategies: Lessons from research and practice (4^th ed.), South Melbourne, VIC: Thompson Social Science Press

Metcalfe, A., & Game, A. (2006). Teachers who change lives. Carlton, VIC: Melbourne University Press.