What should i be?

The second geog lesson touched on the issue of curriculum.Dr Chang was trying to put across to us the need for a curriculum and what it served to fulfill.i personally felt that a curriculum was put in place to allow all schools to follow a standardised format. This would ensure that students throughout the same level would have covered similar essential concepts.

Later that day i bumped into Dr Chang at the gym and he commented on the boring nature of a lesson based on curriculum. he did mention that the question posed by a fellow coursemate(forgot his name!) saved the class from the realms of boredom.

I personally felt that the question did spark off an interesting discussion in class. what constitutes a good geog teacher? does completing all the topics stated on the SOW, striving to attain higher percentages of students passing distinction, improving one's school ranking, getting into the good books of superiors equate to a good geog teacher?

There exist many teachers who strongly believe in this notion and are faithfully working in that direction. There exist schools, who are so preoccupied with maintaining their standings in the rankings, who preach teachers to follow suit and not to be concerned with covering the 'bigger concept' or attaining 'high order learning'.

To a certain extent,I felt that this discussion sort of appealed to my conscience. As a trainee teacher which path would i choose or would the competitive school environment coerce me into adopting one that i conscientiously don't desire?


nagulan

1st geog lesson!

After a month's long wait for these lessons to begin, i went to class with a great level of anticipation and anxiety as i was not knowing what to expect. The lesson began well with an overview of whats to come in the next months. this was followed by Dr Chang handing us sheets-through which we were supposed to express our moods then. although my mood at that point of time reflected a sense of intimidation(after having seen what to expect!!hehe) all of this was put to rest by the time the lesson ended.

That credit goes to to the way the lesson progressed from there. Dr Chang created a staff meeting kind of scenario. We took on the roles of different staff members of a school and discussed different ways of marketing geography to the masses.

This experience was highly enriching and proved to be an eye opener to me. All groups came up with unique ideas to market the subject and the presentations paved the way for beneficial discussions which helped liven the mood and put me very much at ease.

The use of various strategies to teach a subject rather than adopting a mundane 'read off the book' approach is one that i hope to develop from my training in NIE. I want to remain open to all of these various ideas and seek out ways to incorporate them in my lessons. the first lesson today itself exhibited these strategies(role play) which not only kept me focused but also provided with me the confidence that i can expect to see and learn from more of these strategies in the coming lessons.