I believe that teaching is a process which involves the learning of both the teacher and the students. I enjoy working with children when they are full of questions and at times I am ok with saying "I don't know let's look for the answer"
Any research based ,inquiry based project runs very well for me. I enjoy leading the children through the process of developing a research question. It's always interesting to hear so much that goes on in in the mind of these inquisitive learners. Last year my grade 8 was working on impact of government systems on individual and Socities . Students took up the case studies of India and Pakistan,
some of them worked on Arab Israeli conflict, and yet another group picked up the Berlin Wall and its impact on the population. Through the orientation and space time and place it should understood that human beings to get impacted in the same manner wherever ,whenever. It was interesting to see how to learn to co ownership to the learning interacted with writers authors newspaper men; making presentations to each other, talking to the parents about with their grandparents getting us oral histories, we even had Skype interactions with the schools in Pakistan to understand how the thinking developed in both the countries over time. Our topic covered issues such as marginalisation, migration, division and inclusion,Othering; All in all moving into certain uncharted territory for the children. Most of it was guided inquiry, but some of it we can see children taking it off in a different direction- they were very excited about such live examples that they could relate to; it was further more interesting to see them contribute ongoing class blog open the parents too and they also commented on the children's thoughts and inputs.
Along the way I asked children to think about any Research question that they would like to work on and it was so exciting to see at each and every child came up with their own Research question ,formulated the question that they wanted to work on and they looked at the action plan that they would go to answer the question and they followed the whole process through. Through this activity were developed so many skills that were needed for my subject the general awareness was created about not only what happened in the past but also how that impacted ask in present times. We also took them for a field trip to one of the border areas of India and Pakistan children saw the exchange between the two border zones and came to know that the events of the past have been exaggerated at times ,interpreted in different ways and that partition of India and Pakistan was as painful for them as it was for our side of the world. As a teacher I learnt that the child is not the only learner. We all are learners in the process of life, the parents needed to learn what to tell the child and not colour their opinion, the teacher need to learn how to guide and mentor the child ,the politicians need to learn how not to use events of the past to suit their needs, the media person needed to learn how not to sensationalize any event. so,to be principled and open minded people of the world there wasn't too much that we would need to do.
https://blog.seesaw.me/grade8c
I realised this style of teaching not only aided me in letting the children explore in different directions but also give me a direction by the end of it. It was a total win win situation and I enjoyed it thoroughly.
