Golden Mean!!

For the first glance when you look at that word the first thing might come to your mind is math, but if we related to philosophy it has nothing or has a little thing to do with maths.  In philosophy, especially that of Aristotle, the 'golden mean' is the desirable middle between two extremes, there are two Aristotelian extremes:  the extreme of too little, and the extreme of too much.  For instance, in terms of eating, if one eats too much, one will suffer from obesity, lack of energy, poor health in general, or death.  Whereas the moderate man or woman (the thinking person) avoids such excess.  For Aristotle, the proper perspective is the Golden Mean, a path between extremes, "the best is the middle", in other words the better is to balance.

 If we want to relate this 'golden mean' to a teacher's personality, here we go.  We found that some teachers always draw a frown on their face, and other teachers have a smile on their face.  So what do you think is it right thing for a teacher to keep frowning or smiling???  Based on the golden mean its very obvious to say that a teacher should be in between, not frowning and not smiling all the time.  So a teacher should balance her attitudes and also should teach her students to be at the Golden Mean, if she can then she will be a successful teacher.

Done For Ourselves or Others???

Many of the things we do in life are actually done for others and for ourselves.  When you are invited to a wedding party, you wear your best clothes.  You do this to attract people's attention and to amaze them with your appearance, and not for your own sake.  You become happy when you notice that they admire your beautiful appearance, or your glamorous clothes.  When you decorate your home, and put effort into adoring and taking care of it, you do it mostly for others' sight and not your own.  Or when you invite your friends for lunch,  you do your best so that there will be many kinds of food, and you make sure that the food is well arranged and is more varied than usual.  The more important your friends are to you, the greater your concern about the food.  And no doubt we overwhelmed with happiness when someone praises our clothes or the decor of our houses, or the taste of our cooking.  

Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) said, "Let a man come to the people how he likes the people come to him", in other words treat the people how you like to be treated by them.

No matter how successful one becomes, he would remain human, and dance to words of praise.

Learning Styles

Teacher should recognize that each student prefers different learning styles and techniques.  Everyone has a mix of learning styles. Some students may find that they have a dominant style of learning. Others may find that they use different styles in different circumstances. There is no right mix. It is also helpful to encourage students to understand their preferred leaning style, by that time students reach college level noticing the best and most productive way to study to retain information. 

Teachers should make students aware of the various learning styles and encourage them to consider their preferred style as they complete their studies.  There are various learning styles:  Visual, Auditory, Kinesthetic, Mathematical, and Social.

 

 Visual, students  prefer using pictures, images, and spatial understanding.Auditory, students prefer using sound and music.Furthermore, Kinesthetic is when students prefer using their body hands and sense of touch.  Mathematical, students prefer using logic and reasoning.  Moreover other students are interpersonal they prefer working with others, whereas other students are intrapersonal they prefer to work alone and use self study.

So as a teacher we have to recognize our student's learning style and know hoe to deal with it.

Teaching With Humor

Any teacher will tell you that one of the hardest things about being a teacher is keeping students engaged.  So one of the most important methods in order to keep students engaged is using Humor.  Imagine yourself attending a seminar or a speech and the public speaker starts his speech with a joke to gets everyone's attention, so a good laugh at the beginning helps bring an audience together. 
The same can be applied at the classroom, besides getting everyone's attention, humor provides a healthy learning environment, It's an ice breaker.  Humor helps students to become fully engaged.  But you have to be careful because  sometimes humor also be a misfire, you might think this is funny but others may not.  So humor must be constructive, so take care where to place jokes within the context of the material being presented.  More over we as teachers we have to be careful of the following, we have to avoid hurtful humor (don't be demanding of others), lose your fear of embarrassment in order to draw shyer students out of their shell, don't be afraid to act out concepts and content.  This is might sound wired for a teacher but its very helpful to cloud humor in the classroom, do a little dance when the ring of musical cell phone disrupts the class, and use humor in tests and quizzes were it helps decreasing test anxiety. 
Humor can help reduce student-anxiety, also humor should be very well thought out.

Questions Teachers can Ask Students

The teacher needs to be expert at asking questions, and not only asking well designed ones, but ones that also lead students to questions of their own.  Asking straightforward questions, simply worded questions can be just as effective as those complicated ones.  So as a novice teacher we might think that we are asking right questions but they might be wrong, so we have to be careful.  If you ask the wrong questions, you'll probably get the wrong answer, or at least not quite what you're hoping for.
So as a novice teacher, make it simple for instance as such "What do you think?"  this question interrupts us from telling too much, there is a place for direct instruction where we give students information but yet we need to always strive to balance this by giving opportunities for students to  use their schemata and understanding.

 Moreover, ask them "What do you think?"  after students share what they think, this question pushes them to provide reasoning for their thinking.  "How do you know this?"  when this question is asked, students can make connections to their ideas and thoughts with things they've experienced, read, or have seen.  "Can you tell more?"  this question can help students to extend their thinking.  "What questions do you still have?"  this question allow students offer questions they have about the information.
P.S. as a teacher always plan and prepare your questions before coming to class.

What's The Right Balance??

Schools are adopting new technologies at a very quick pace—tablets, smartphones, interactive projectors, even 3-D displays.  With technology tools, there is so much exciting experimentation going on as educators explore the many ways these tools can be used to enhance teaching and learning.
But not everyone is a fan, some educators worry that technology can be a distraction, and others have concerns about what the consequences might be??  So the question, where do we find the right balance??

 

On the one hand...technology is an amazing tool that enhances the learning process, and on the other hand the way we integrate technology is often misguided, and we sometimes rely on it too much.  For instance, technologies like tablets and student response so engaging. Students really like being able to accomplish a task using technology and seem to work harder and longer at these tasks. In today’s world both students and their parents expect to use technology as a learning tool.  On the other hand, It’s true that students really like using technology, but do the benefits go much deeper? . A quick Google search is no substitute for doing real research.

The Three R's: Reading. Writing, and Arithematic

The coming of computers, calculators, and smart phones have just eliminated the use of the three R's.  Technology has resulted many changes, both positive and negative.  The increased use of technology now a days in the classroom and outside the classroom means that students are not focusing on learning the 3 R's anymore.

One of the 3 R's that are most in risk is writing.  Students are writing less, and what they do write is often illegible, so that we can see a drop-off in the quality of handwriting as well.  In other words, many school teachers allow students to hand in may written projects in type-written not hand-written form.  That makes students to be more careless about their grammatical and spelling mistakes, because they rely and depend on the computer program (spell check software) to correct the errors.  Moreover, our children no longer know the basics of grammar and how to outline a sentence, identify the noun in the sentence, and select the proper for example if they were writing a sentence the spell check program might correct the error with the wrong option (their, they're, and there) when writing.  In order to make our children master these 3 R's, try to read with them every night, make them write drafts before typing, and finally try to put down the calculator and encourage your child to do math home work long-hand.

Look With Both Eyes

  We tend to be experts at noticing other people's faults and commenting on them.  But we rarely tend to be experts on noticing the good they have and the right things they do in order to comment positively.
For example, a teacher with his students.  All teachers tend to criticize the lazy student who does not do his work and is always late to his lessons.  However, not many teachers comment positively about the student who is hardworking, and has a good handwriting.  We often criticize the faults of our children but praise them little when they do good.  This makes us lose many opportunities through which we can win over hearts.  Therefore, from the most important of all skills is to praise the good that people may have.  But some do worry about the effects of praise.  That too much praise will thicken the ego, but this seems to be an ancient concern.  Whereas these days praising is one of the most important skills because it is believed that praising makes kids better, more motivated, and more confident.
Be optimistic and have a good opinion of people.  Encourage them so they give more ;). 

Self Improvement

   So many times i have told myself in complete seriously, "I'm going to be organized and productive from now on, or that I'm going  to make a real effort to exercise now, or that i should finsh reading that book in two days!!!".
This is the most common thing in the whole world, the honest and the enthusiastic desire for self-improvement, followed by inaction or giving into temptations, followed by guilt or giving up. It happens to the best of us.  For example unemployment at work, mixed with a bit of laziness, as well as the common human trait of giving in to desires despite all the good intentions in the whole world.
So a question to be raised here how can we beat laziness and temptations??
I can see that there are many ways to beat laziness.  Laziness can be beat by movement so one of the main ways to beat it is to get moving, once you get going laziness is no longer a factor.  Furthermore you should ignore failures and motivate yourself, in other words don't do a thing just because you have to do it or to feel pressure to do something- you have to really desire it.  If pressure gives you the push toward your goal, motivation gives you the pull.

 

 “No matter who you are, no matter what you did, no matter where you’ve come from, you can always change, become a better version of yourself.”
― Madonna

Technology and Education

we live in a world where technology is everything, we read books online, we take classes online, we assign assignments for students online, we learn online, so basically we're getting educated online.
for this education to be effective, teachers should be educated in technology so that the students are given the opportunity to make good use of such blessing. The fact that teachers are starting to know more about how to integrate technology into the classroom, makes it more facilitated for students themselves to get ahead.
In public schools teachers have started to take intensive courses on how to integrate technology into their instructions, but there's a gap that should be filled. How can teachers learn about technology when there's no means for application? and how will they store the information they learn in these courses without real life application?