Hence it would be futile to think of a way of teaching that one can glue to. However, I need a central thread connecting all of my existence and have found reflection to be one of the best ones!
Reflection has been a part of my teaching life for as long as I know.
In my first year as a rookie teacher, I experimented with it. My first attempt was to ask students to give only my shortcomings. That was a mistake for it was so depressing! The next one was to ask for both positive and negative and was better. But a number of students felt self-conscious in writing critical feedback so I made it anonymous, using a pencil and on a paper and that got me what I wanted for everyone to respond! Over the years I discovered that student feedback is one of the most powerful ways to grow as a teacher. They are so honest, yet empathic and focusing on what the majority says gives one a way forward in the work. I took regular feedback and worked with it regularly. This was one of the ways of taking me deep into self-reflection.
The other means of reflection was my own behavior with the students.
Few teachers get through a day without facing some or other dilemmas. I went through the same. Every evening I would sit with myself and think ‘what was wow and muddy about my day?’ I went over all incidents where I lost control and reflected on the reasons. Slowly I found a change in personality happened through it.
Being a teacher in today’s world is more than being good in the skills of the teaching process.
It is to be able to be aware of and challenge one’s own belief system. Reflection is a very powerful process for the same. For reflections helps to target one's skill set to the present situation and focusing on the gap between the skillset and situation, one learns to develop new solutions and hence grow further as a human being (Larrivee, 2000).
I owe a lot to my students for the person that I have become over the years.
Every student that was a ‘problem student’ for me was a student that came into my life to challenge my beliefs and help me to grow further. This helped me to expand my awareness to include all students in myself and eventually be able to hold all of them in a loving awareness that only grew richer and richer. I owe it to them!
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