My Teaching Philosophy

Question opens the mind and leads to an action whereas statement closes the mind and leads to a full stop. 

          As a teacher I have the responsibility to help my students to learn & grow. To make this happen I need to create a classroom that is welcoming, positive and fair environment where all students learn from one another and feel safe and comfortable to share their thoughts and ideas. I give opportunities to children to work in small groups and encourage them to voice their thoughts.

         It is the teacher’s duty to bring out the latent talents of students. Students tend to perform better when they are actively involved in their learning. 

         As I was born and brought up in a village I was exposed to all sorts of work. When I was in school, my teacher used to believe me and give me a lot of opportunities to develop my skills. I was given leadership roles to perform many group activities. I used to correct my peer’s books, conduct tests and correct their papers and give immediate feedback to them. I learnt how to utilize the blackboard in an effective way from my teacher. 

         Whenever I get appreciation from my colleagues, I remember my teachers, the way they trained me and my learning experiences and share it with my peers. My school teacher stressed more on self learning which helps me today to show my potential in my work station. Even though I got many chances from my teachers in my school days I did not follow them for my children in my early days of teaching and I believed only on rote learning.

         There was a transformation in my thoughts after I joined Vedavalli Vidyalaya. Initially I had a doubt in my mind that is it possible to teach children through Activity Based Learning?  Will they understand and learn better? After seeing the change and progress in students and my son I realized that Activity Based Learning and Self Learning are the best methodologies for the learning outcome of the children and I started to follow this in my teaching. Inspite of that, I used to blurt out answers before they write on their own. Once I helped my son to complete his homework I gave him answers. He told me that he can write on his own. That was an eye opener for me and I stopped giving out answers not only for my son but also for my students. That was a great learning for me. The following are the sample worksheets of our students.

        

I had a student from grade 2 who never participates in classroom discussions. He was often not paying attention. So I started giving exclusive attention to him. Whenever I found time, I interacted with him. One day I asked him, ‘Where does the sun rise?’ He responded that ‘The sun rises in ‘the sky’. The answer that he gave really surprised me because I expected him to answer ‘The sun rises in the east! Then I changed the question and asked ‘In which direction does the sun rise?’ Then he answered correctly. All these years I used to ask this question but I didn’t realize that it was wrong. He made me to understand that I need to change my questioning skills and children’s thinking level goes beyond our expectations. This is one of my leanings from my students.