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Day 7 - The Art of Teaching

Teacher's profession is considered the most noblest of all. And yet, we somehow always discourage our kids from taking it up as a career. We look at it as a last resort, as something that failures do. How do we expect great results from our kids when we don't allow great teachers to get into the field? Having said that, our immediate goal must be to train the existing teachers to at least sustain learning if not improve it drastically.

One of the most important aspect that determines a student's understanding of concepts, is curiosity. If there is no sense of need from the student's side, whatever we teach goes over their heads. When we talk to our friends or interact with anyone in general, we provide new information by first grabbing their attention. This works in a classroom too. We must always pique their curiosity, explain as to why they need to learn something before we get down to actual delivering of the lesson. This helps in holding the student's attention, making him understand and being able to connect it back to real life. It helps in making him/her believe that she can do it.

Another aspect is setting goals and vision for the student. This sets the tone for every student to want to learn new things for the rest of his/her life. When they have an end goal in mind, they know what they are working towards and they know what it will take for them to achieve their own goals. The kid can be introduced to new professions and areas by different guests and field trips. This provides a real life experience for them to directly connect with and aspire to be a part of. Setting of vision drives the 'I want to' attitude in a student that forms the basis of his/her life, the want to know. The art of teaching involves creating curiosity is the minds of students, making them understand a concept and then guiding them to reflect on the newly gained knowledge to come up with applications or examples. This may sound very simple but the difficult part is in controlling every feeling that every child is going to have along the path. If we let their minds wander beyond a certain point, then the knowledge is lost and so is their ability to think critically.

Very briefly put, the success of a teacher is measured in his/her ability to take a student's 'I want', add to it the 'I can' and then mix both of them in right proportions to create the 'I will'. A teacher is but a facilitator of this growth and nothing more. A student with an 'I can', is a gross waste of potential and a student with an 'I want' is shackled. If we can remove those shackles, and then make them use their full potential, there can be a gazillion possibilities for not just the student, but his family, friends, community, society and the world itself!

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