Cornucopia of teachingSheba Mary Mathew Primary Teacher Al Wurood International School, Jeddah How true is Benjamin Franklin's observation “Tell me and I forget. Teach me and I remember. Involve me and I learn.” Every teacher can recount plentiful ups and downs in their teaching career. Personally, I have experienced many such great moments while teaching. My career as a teacher was very challenging and exciting. For the first time when I stood in front of my students, I understood that teaching is not about application of learned techniques. Teachers have a crucial role in making a grand difference in each student's life. From my experience in teaching, I strongly feel that teachers have to target for the overall progress of a child in the accurate way. Teachers try to bring out the abundance of pristine creativity that lies inherent in each child in class. The spark of the visionary gleam in every child is stoked through a plethora of activities in the class. Even if the teacher is highly knowledgeable and up to date in their subject area, they should not pretend to know everything. A teacher should be willing to learn from our students and understand how even our small gestures smear a great difference in their hearts. Students are people who have feelings and who don't want to feel cornered. They want to learn but they also want to feel as if they have some control over themselves. Students have to be trained to face the situations practically. We have to involve students in all activities conducted in the class to bring out better learning method. We have to provide our students with clear tasks, goals, and requirement and inform them of progress made. We have to encourage pupils to think, to make connections, to practice and reinforce, to learn from other learners and to feel that if they make mistakes they will not be ridiculed or treated negatively. Praise is connected to students' effort and attainment, conveying sincere pleasure from the teacher. Unravel their outcome positively and encourage them to excel. ‘The students may forget what we said but they will never forget how we made them feel.' As a teacher, we must know what our students expect, and we have to make plans to meet those expectations. Good teachers regularly reflect about their classes, students, resources, and methods. A great lesson plan and a great lesson are two totally different things; it's good when one follows the other, but we all know that it doesn't always work out that way. We teach so that students will learn, and when learning doesn't happen, we need to be willing to work out new strategies, think in new ways, and generally do anything possible to revive the learning process. We have to be ready to update our self constantly. As a teacher, I am still learning and I have decided not to stop. Teaching is not a static state, but it is a constant process. As told to Munawarunnisa Nazneen/Saudi Gazette __
