Happy Reading!
Well, a couple of months ago, I took up a another job and with it came a surprise – I was supposed to teach English. Granted, that English language has been my first love and I am immensely grateful to all my English teachers at school who were always enthusiastic and encouraging and so full of grace, I didn’t for a moment believe that I could or would be good at teaching the subject. That being said, I prepared to face the challenge. Hitherto, I have thoroughly enjoyed every class because it has been a personal learning experience.
One of the observation that makes a language class distinct from a science class is that the former involves or combines a lot of self connection, introspection and perceptive communication. In a science class, one wonders at the unraveling of universal truth, marvels at the legacy of logical and rational thought process, the strength of observation and inference. Au contraire, in a language class one wonders at the unraveling of the poet’s/author’s thought, hinges on a society and a past that is presented through that observer’s thought and one infers the learning from one’s own learning plane. There is nothing definite or discrete.
It took me a couple of tests to figure out what the children needed with respect to facilitating the learning of the language. Based on a little reading and hunch, I made a list of classroom activities, like, Mondays we had Just A Minute session; Tuesdays were reserved for article or poem reading; Wednesdays came with new words and vocabulary; on Thursdays we checked our spelling levels, Fridays were for writing and expressing our thoughts/feelings and Saturdays were greeted soberly with tests.
We had group discussions on topics like, “What is a language and what is its purpose?”; “What is meant by equal opportunities? Does being equal and being fair mean the same?”; “How do we have accessible education for everyone?”, etc. One of the things that I learnt as being a moderator in such discussions is that children are much more intelligent than what the system of marks/grades gives them credit for and having an open-ended conversation gives more room for constructive and critical thinking.
I believe in the approach of letting kids learn at their own pace and giving them the autonomy to learn in a way that suits them best. When students presented each of their prose as a form of dialogue/ skit/ song/ puppet show/ celebrity interview/ miming; it reinforced my beliefs and brought out immense joy in the classroom.
Of course, I couldn’t map the reflection of their learning with their exam papers, so I can’t tell you if it worked in a quantifiable manner. In all honesty, I personally, never aimed for it, too. What is it then, I seek as a teacher? Well, I just want my kids (students) to see learning as how Wordsworth saw Daffodils. Classroom and what they learn should “flash upon that inward eye” and give them “the bliss of solitude” and make their “heart with pleasure fills”. Hoping to achieve that someday…
Learning Science 