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.