Who are we in the classroom?

8/28/2015

A young teacher, Sensy Nena, posted this:

“Classrooms are places where students learn rather than being places where teachers teach. To what extent do you agree with the statement above?”

This was my response:

“Hmmm… I think it is important to understand the difference between “teaching” and “instructing”. Teaching is the sharing and enlightening of knowledge whereas instructing is merely giving information. In the classroom we are all learners and teachers. The students and the teachers are ‘teaching’. We share with them our knowledge and they teach us to be better teachers. Both students and teachers are ‘learners’. The students are learning from us and we learn something new every time from them. If we as teachers are not learning with our students then we are doing them and ourselves a disservice. It goes both ways.”

This got me thinking about when I was a very young teacher many years ago. My first educational class was an early school age class. This was back in the days when pre-school education was something that was still being experimented with. I thought I was there to ‘teach’ and the students were there to ‘learn’. Well, I quickly learned that was not true!

As a self -taught teacher, I found there was much I needed to learn about child development. This sent me to the local library to study every book I can get my hands on. What I learned was everything was not in the books! It was in my students. I had a lot of knowledge and experience to share with them and they soaked it up like a sponge… but it was my students that taught me more! I learned about their different cultures that they came from. I learned about all the different ways they learned. I learned about what gets them excited about learning and why. Through them I learned whole new ways of teaching and sharing. It was a very exciting year.

Over the years… almost forty… I have found with each new class, each new age group, there was always something exciting & new to learn from them and something new I could teach them. It didn’t matter if they were 3yrs old or 80yrs old, or if it was an art class, a robotic class, an academic class or an English class… there was always something wonderful and new to exchange. I just had to keep my eyes and heart open to find it.

Colleagues and students have remarked how much I seem to love teaching. I do because it has been a long journey and the adventure isn’t over yet. I continue to learn from my students and fellow teachers, young and old, which is what brings me to my motto, “We are teachers as well as students and our students are our teachers.”

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