Being a 21st Century teacher

Anyone can be a self-claimed teacher but not everyone can be an impactful ones.

The war with online games

With the advance of technology and internet, teachers of this age would need to battle in a war to win over students from online cyber addiction as well as rich knowledge that they can easily gain simply by google about it.

Gone are the days where teachers are the all mighty ones with the highest authority in knowledge. Our lessons must be engaging and even more fun than our students' online games. They must find learning more engaging than their online games at home.

Instead of keeping them away from games, modern teachers should just grab their interest in online games and gather lots of multiplayer challenging competitive educational games that provide the excitement as well as challenge. It is really true that not just children but we adults learn best when we are having fun. Sitting passively in a lecture theatre while dozing off is really not effective learning and we would not even remember 1% of what is being taught.

Ignite the passion and joy of learning

I have been given the weakest class of the level for most of my years as an educator. Teaching pupils from broken homes as well as lack of home support, their level of interest in learning is really low. They can even boldly tell me that they hate learning the subject that I am teaching which is Mathematics.

What do I do with kids with no interest in learning?

My ultimate aim is to get my students to like the subject so that even if they have graduated from my class, they will still have the passion to learn even if they did not do well in their assessment. By having the passion and joy to learn, they would become a life-long learners that would help them to cope with the competitive world with the only constant is change.

I will try to find ways to get my pupils to learn Mathematics through songs as well as movement. Getting them to dance and have fun with Mathematics. I will also get them to play online games related to Mathematics.

After teaching for about 20 years, it is really great to have ex-students to share how I have impacted their lives. It just takes a little spark and help them to have a turning point in their educational path. Nevertheless, not every educator has the same belief as they may be stuck with their almighty ego. I really don't mind being a clown and regularly having humour in my Mathematics lessons as long as my students are enjoying the process of learning.

Don't teach the way you think is good but teach the way students will like to learn.

Inclusive of special needs children

When I first started teaching as an untrained teacher before being sent for training, I entered a class that was really quite hard to handle. I had a special need pupil who would steal as well as make all sorts of commotion within my lesson. 20 years back, autism, ADHA etc were not well-known by teachers and my only way of handling was to raise my voice to discipline and scold. Special needs children may have been just being treated as misbehaved children.

Most teachers in this modern age are trained and have some knowledge of special needs children. They still find it hard to handle them when they are in the mainstream schools. One of the most important ingredients of success to handle special children is really patience. Get to know their liking if possible and study how they could be handled effectively.

I do have an autistic pupil in my class now. With my knowledge, I was able to handle him and provide the inclusive learning that was necessary. Parents are also grateful when they know their special needs child is being taken care of.

Every child has a right to be educated but not every child should be educated the same way. Let the special needs children enjoy their school life even if they are unable to follow the rest due to their learning difficulties. Let them learn how to socialise with normal kids and the kids would pick up empathy as well as compassion. These are great values to learn through direct contact within the classroom.

I hope that all educators would learn to accept every individual regardless of whether they are special needs or having behavioral problems. Every child is unique and they deserve to be treated fairly.

How would you want your child to be treated should be how you should treat them especially if you are a parent yourself!

There are still many other things that teachers need to do like attending endless meetings after school as well as conducting workshops for other younger teachers if you are already a senior. We also need to organise events like international friendship days, sports day etc.

Life of a 21st century teacher is packed with never ending tasks and we sleep late for most of our days. Sleeping for less than 5 hours a day is really normal. It would be a blessing to have 8 hours of sleep.

Don't give up if you are an educator like me. You can impact the future and change the course even an entire family with education. The future of the next generation really lies on how you decide how you want to educate them.

Disclaimer:

This is a personal reflection and it is not meant to instruct any teacher what to do. Picture used is taken from google image that is free from copyright labelled for reuse.