A Teacher’s Journey as a Learner

05 Oct 2019

I have been in the teaching profession for more than a decade now and still, it feels as if I have just started, and I am yet to learn a lot. It’s not that I am struggling with the knowledge or content of my subject, but the demand to keep the young minds stimulated and engaged always keeps me on my toes.

As far as the subject is related, I am a Maths Teacher and generally ‘Maths Teacher’ carries a stigma of ‘Oh so boring and strict teacher!!’ Trust me, A Maths Teacher always has to go extra miles to become her students’ favorite teacher. Somehow, I felt that people get number phobia very easily. But after joining Manav Rachna International School, Noida in 2015, it became very easy for me to remove this stigma.

I was always in love with the logic of Mathematics, but MRIS helped me to make it fun for my students also. Here I learned how not to project my subject as number-crunching difficult enigma but encourage my students to enjoy Math’s logic as games of solving interesting puzzles. I always tell my students that Maths is not to be studied, it’s just like sports or your favorite video game; all you need to know is the rules (the way you learn the rules of sports without even memorizing it!) and then practice to excel!! Once you master a level, you go to the next level where the difficulty level increases. So, when you are bored of studying other subjects, do Maths as a stress buster.

In Manav Rachna group, we are continuously being trained on the latest teaching methodologies and given an environment where we can facilitate our students to reach beyond their maximum potential. Few of the teaching strategies, I adopt to multiply the fun of Math are:

1) Introduce the application first- When the students know where these concepts can be used, they are more interested to learn.

2) Help students to think and establish the logic behind every concept.

3) Hands-on activities – doodle pools, games for finding HCF and LCM etc.

4) Emphasize conceptual understanding over procedure – If they understand the concept, procedure will become easy.

5) Never settle on one strategy- We, teachers have to be innovators as our students do not like monotony.

The positive outcome in the learning of my students keeps me motivated and I know, I have to keep learning to cater to these young mathematicians. So my journey continues…

Written By:- Ms. Pallavi Anand, MRIS- Noida