My teacher used to tell me…

When I was in school, my English teacher used to always tell me that: “No one is perfect, that’s why pencils have erasers”, every time I used to get upset when my English work didn’t go the way I wanted it to be. She used to always tell me that it is okay! No one is perfect, if everyone’s writing is perfect, then why would pencils have an eraser?! Ever since then I can never forget this sentence, it helped through my life. I can see now that it’s okay not to be perfect, I may mess things in my life, I cannot go back in time and not do them but I can correct as much as I can.

Teachers can influence young minds in many ways! 

Why Traditional Classes Instead of Online?

I see that the traditional classes are better than online classes in many aspects. The traditional classes hold many characteristics that lack in the online classes, including that it helps the teacher and students to know more each other and interact together. In addition to growing interpersonal relationships and face to face interactions that usually lack in online classes. Students be more actively learning in traditional classes, also they become more disciplined and learn to follow a certain schedule, rules and regulations. All these and many others are crucial for students across all levels, for developing skills that they will use later in their lives. 

Despite all of this, one should never ignore also all the advantages and positive impact of online learning that we had to shift to after the pandemic virus. 

Online Learning

If you go back in time, most of us used to think that online learning would have been much better and easier than the traditional courses. But no one imagined that we will reach the time that we, for real, start learning online. It wasn’t the way most people expected it would be, simply because we are not qualified enough for this online learning, starting from the bad internet connection to many other problems that most of us know by now. In addition to that, everything new to all in online learning holds some difficulties and fear for both students and teachers, especially for those teachers who are not practiced and qualified enough for teaching online.

An Important Skill for a Science/Biology Teacher

Teaching Science or Biology holds many challenges especially for the students who are not interested in the subject. One of the most important skills for a teacher to have is to involve students in learning. Being a teacher doesn’t recommend for you to do all the work, let your students be involved in the learning process. For example, if there is an experiment to be done, as a teacher do not do all the work, let some students volunteer and help you, of course while taking all the safety measures. By this, the class will be more interesting for all students, especially for those who dislike the subject, and they learn better by being on task and engaged. 

Learning Process

The learning process is complex since every student learns in a different way, and it is personal to each student. It is the process of making sense of and using new information, concepts and experiences depending on his/her way of thinking, thoughts and many others. I see in schools, teachers (of course some, not all) stress too much students if they don't understand a certain concept or lesson from the first or same way, this puts so much pressure on the child thinking that he/she is a failure. This will also demotivate students to learn and then maybe to dislike a specific subject. This is a case of many students, and I was one of them back then in school. I was a slow learner, I only needed more time than others to understand concepts. This doesn't mean that the student is incapable of succeeding in school and later in life, and teachers need to stop stressing their students and try helping and supporting them more often.

My Drawings

All my friends usually get surprised when I mention that I do some sketching of pictures. I usually draw every while when I feel to do so, it’s not as a casual hobby. Sometimes I feel that I should enrich my talent more and practice it. As a biologist, drawing helped me sketch different figures and labels and even pathways in order to make my learning process more interesting and easier to remember. On the other hand, sketching is just an escape of some thoughts through pictures rather than words or expressions. I see that I should practice drawing more often, but I often always forget about this in my free time. Here are some of my latest sketches that I hope you’d enjoy, and I’d love to hear your feedback, maybe this will encourage me to draw more often.

Children's Logic

 While refreshing my mind in my news feed this dialogue took my eye:

- Teacher: How old is your father?
- Kid: He is 6 years old.
- Teacher: What? How is this possible?
- Kid: He became a father only when I was born.

Logic!! Children are quick by their innocent replies to simple and straight forward questions. Children also always speak their minds and consider their answers are right to the way they think and how they consider certain approaches. Teachers should always take into consideration children’s logic and go through it without hurting children’s feelings by inconsiderate replies or reactions.