SEC-S6W2: "I Am a Teacher | what makes a teacher.

Hi steemian friends!

There is a saying that if you want to destroy any nation, you don't need to attack its economy. All you need to do is to destroy its education system. The reason is, the progress of every nation depends on how good its educational system is.

Without a good education, there can not be any good achievements or progress. That's to tell you how important education is in our lives and the progress of our nation. Teachers indeed deserve great respect because they are the backbone of whatsoever we achieve or how far we go in life.

Whose teacher are you? Do you teach for a living?

_{myself in classroom with my students}

I'm a teacher not only to a particular individual or a certain group of people. The reason is, I sometimes find myself teaching my friends, colleagues at work, students in school, and my brothers and sisters at home. I believe teaching is not only done in classrooms because whenever you share ideas with someone concerning what he or she does not know, I believe you are teaching.

Moreover, in 2019, I taught in one of the government secondary schools in my area. The name of the school is government day Mayo Dassa. It was a class with a population of 165 students. Their age ranges from 15 to 18.

After I applied for NYSC to serve my country (Nigeria) I was posted to Highbreed Model School, Ilorin, Kwara state. I'm currently working with the school, and I'm teaching social studies and creative and cultural art. The total population of my students is 28.

I find joy in sharing my knowledge with the upcoming generation, and if you ask me, I will tell you that teaching is one of my sources of happiness. I love it when I'm with those kids. They are amazing and lovely children. Try teaching kids, and you will know the joy in it.

What challenges have you faced as a teacher?

Source

It's very unfortunate that in whatever we do, challenges are inevitable. There is work on the phase of the earth that has no challenges, and even life itself is challenging. So it is with teaching. Although it's a nice and lovely thing to do, it has many challenges that come with it. Below are a few of the basic challenges I have encountered in the journey of teaching.

• language barrier: although English is known to be the universal language in Nigeria, we have thousands of ethnic groups that speak different languages. Most of the students, especially those from remote areas don't understand English, and as such, communicating with them is always hard. And when there is a problem in communication, teaching and learning can not be effective.

• poor or inadequate teaching facilities: for teaching and learning to be effective, certain things need to be in place. For example, the classroom must be conducive and well-ventilated, the laboratory and library must be well-equipped, and instructional materials that will help aid more understanding of any topic also need to be available. I have always found it difficult to teach some topics due to the unavailability of a conducive environment, ill-equipped laboratory, and library.

• students' attitude: students came from different backgrounds with different beliefs and cultures. And these students got different home training. Some of them behave well due to the kind of training they receive at home, while some of them are difficult to handle because of their lack of respect and attention in class. Frankly speaking, some students are very stubborn, naughty, and very difficult to control. I have come across many of them, and it's one of the challenges I faced as a teacher.

There are also challenges like forming notes on daily basis, drafting schemes of work, making lesson plans, and going around looking for teaching aids, but I don't consider them as basic challenges because they are part of the teaching job. They are the responsibilities of teachers.

How do you create a learning environment that is both stimulating and supportive?

_{I and my students}

Creating a good learning environment is one of the basic things in teaching. I believe it won't be wrong for me to say it is the most important part of teaching. The reason is, learning can not be effective if the environment is not lively and conducive for both the teacher and the learners.

Create a learning environment, there are some things that I use to be sensitive to. And before I start teaching, I make sure that everything is in order. Below are a few of the things I do to create an environment that help support learning.

Make instructional materials available: the importance of instructional materials in teaching can not be overemphasized. Instructional materials help the students to understand whatever you are teaching them. For instance, if you want to teach about elasticity, and you use rubber bands and other elastic materials to demonstrate to them, they will understand more and they will hardly forget it.

Cracking of jokes: in teaching, there are times when the classroom becomes boring to the students due to either stress or high temperature (weather). In a moment like that, the students will lose interest in whatever you are teaching, and they will stop paying attention. As such, l learning can not take place. As a teacher, whenever I notice something like that, I will divert from teaching to cracking jokes. The joke will capture their attention, and it will arouse interest and make them happy. After capturing their attention, I can then go back to the topic of discussion (teaching).

Creating a good rapport with the students: one of the things that enhance students' understanding is their interest in the teacher. If a student hates you, it will be difficult for him or her to understand whatever you are teaching. In another case, if he or she likes you, no matter how difficult the topic is, he or she will understand it. As such, as a teacher, I try as much as possible to create a good relationship with students.

What professional development opportunities have you pursued to improve your teaching practice?

_{myself and other education students}

In teaching, I find joy, happiness, and fulfillment. Here in Nigeria, teaching jobs are not respected because there is not much money in them. As such, many people run away from it. As for me, I love teaching because it makes me happy.

Out of the love I have for the teaching profession, I decided to pursue a career in it. Today, I'm not just a teacher, but a professional teacher. In higher institutions, I studied physics education, and I'm today a degree holder in education.

At present, higher education is very expensive. What is your opinion on this, or is there any alternative to it?

No one can deny the fact that education is becoming expensive daily. Schools, especially higher institutions keep on increasing their fees. If we look around us today, we will see that the children of the poor hardly go beyond alimentary school because they don't have what it takes to sponsor their kids in higher institutions.

Nevertheless, no matter how expensive education becomes, it can never be more expensive than ignorance. That's to say, there is no alternative to education. But I believe they are some ways that can help make education more accessible to both poor and the rich. Below are a few.

• government should establish more schools and make the fee cheap for the benefit of the poor.
• government should do more in giving out scholarship to students, especially to the poor kids.
• companies and other big organizations should help sponsor certain numbers of students in school yearly.
• the rich should help the children of the poor in the society.
• government should help make learning materials free in schools, so that the poor kids can have access to them.

I now call on @josepha, @yakspeace, and @dave-hanny to participate.

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