My Journey in Education

        I heard a Native American saying which totally applied to me in my journey in education and it was “Tell me and I'll forget. Show me, and I may not remember. Involve me, and I'll understand”. This is exactly what we need in education to make students more involved in learning to understand effectively.

     1994 was the first year in my long journey in education. 19 years went till now and the end is not known until I decide to end up it. Going specifically in my journey to the sciences classes that I passed by through it, I found myself entering the intermediate level that begun at 2002 when I reached grade 7. This grade was the beginning of my suffering with some of these subjects which were biology, chemistry, physics, and mathematics. In reality my memory is not refresh to remember exactly what happened inside the classes but there were some things that happened and affected me negatively or positively. By going generally into my intermediate level, I didn’t remember that it was effective as it should especially because it was the basis for me in physics and chemistry. These two subjects were very new for me and I faced a lot of problems in understanding them correctly. Although these two subjects need concrete materials and a lot of examples to be understood and to stick in our minds, but I didn’t remember any of these happened in any of my intermediate classes. This affected my achievement very negatively because all what I remembered from this level was the protest that my classmates did because we were not understanding chemistry; also I didn’t remember anything because nothing stuck on my mind. It was not a very good experience to me since I had a problem in understanding new information if I didn’t experience or at least observe them and this was not found in my school, for this reason nothing stuck in my mind till now and I felt shame when my sister asked my about anything in chemistry or biology and I forgot the answer. All this happened because of their unclear way in explaining or their methods in teaching which was mainly lecturing all the time.

    After passing the intermediate classes successfully, I entered my secondary level which was totally different in terms of the school, friends, and teachers. I would like to start with math which is my major, till now I still remember the teacher who taught me and how it’s way in explaining made me like the subject, understand it, and decide to choose it as my major. This teacher taught me for three years continuously, although in the first year he didn’t try to build any relationship with us and he was irritable but his way in teaching and assessing was very effective. He used to explain everything very clearly by giving a lot of examples and by trying to make every one participate in his period. Another thing was that after each lesson or two lessons we had a small exam to evaluate our understanding. His performance or methods were always developing even his relationship with us changed by time and became more smoothly; for these reasons year after year mathematics became my favorite subject especially because he taught me three years continuously. On other hand there was the biology and the same thing according to the teacher since he taught me for three years continuously too. This teacher was somehow different than the math teacher; his way in teaching and in dealing with us didn’t change all over the three years. He was either lecturing or writing and we were just copying. Although I was understanding biology but I never took a high grade even when I felt that I did perfect, and what also affected me that all these three years we did only one experiment at the class which was on blood types, but really till now I remember every single step we did, that lesson was very effective to me. But because this subject is full of interpreting, explaining, or in other word it is full of experiments and we didn’t observe any real one I ended up with thoughts that I understand this subject fully while the reality was the opposite, and what happened to me at the official exams was really very shocked and made me hate biology and made me change what I was planning for in my college education. That day I finished my exam with a very happy heart and face because I thought that I did very well in my exam but what was shocking that I failed in the biology exam, I felt very disappointed and I was planning to enter nursing but after what happened I hated biology and I change all my future plan. I don’t think that the problem was just in me but also was in the teacher’s ways and the teaching strategies he used which was only rote learning.

     Now, I will move to another subject that I really suffered from in my secondary level which was chemistry or maybe I was suffering from the chemistry teacher mainly. He taught me in the first and third secondary and he affected me very negatively because instead of liking chemistry I hate it. This teacher had no teaching methods, no classroom management, and no content knowledge, I were suffering at his classes because I didn’t understand this subject, he easily got lost in any question we asked him about and also w never go to the lab to observe things which made the subject very dry and meaningless. His way was always unclear and when he started to explain on the board we found him confused or carrying his copy book just copying from it, these things weakness our trust on him. Always when I entered his class I felt angry because everyone was talking, a lot of chaos found really his classes was as a beehive. These factors affected my understanding and my achievement for this subject. But what happened that at my second secondary class a different teacher taught me, he was totally different from the previous teacher. That year was different for me I started to like chemistry, understand it, and participate at its classes. This teacher had very effective teaching strategy and he explained the ideas very clearly, also he tried to take us to the lab several times to observe some experiments like titration. Although we were just observed but it affected my understanding positively because until now I still remember the instruments and some steps the teacher did, that year was the only year in my secondary education that I liked this subject and I understood it.

    The last subject was physics which till now I hate it and I found a lot of difficulties understanding it may be because the same teacher who taught me in the school also taught me the physics courses at the university. To be honest and fair this teacher has a very nice personality and deal with us very politely with a lot of respect but the problem was that he didn’t has an effective way to transform the big quantity of information he had. This caused me a lot of problems to understand this subject and apply it to my life especially because we didn’t experience any information, they were just something abstract to me and unfortunately the same teacher also taught me most of the physics courses at the university.

     After putting a lot of effort and studying I finished my secondary education successfully. I registered mathematics based on my experience with sciences, so I found myself more comfortable and willing to enter this domain because I found myself in it. My experience at the university was different than school because at the university the relationships was too much less among students and between students and the teacher. At the university we entered the class finding the teacher only lecturing his subject with some participation. Some courses had solving exercises sessions per week while a lot of other courses didn’t had and we had to satisfy with what was taken at the class at the beginning it was hard for me but with time I got used and I changed my way of studying to keep succeeding.

    Now I finished my BS in math and I decided to complete my teaching diploma instead of making masters in math because I felt that it will help me more in my domain later on. But my journey will not stop after I finished my diploma unless I decide to stop it here.

     Finally, there is a saying which I like for John Ruskin said:  The true end of education is not only to make the young learned, but to make them love learning; not only to make them industrious, but to make them love industry; not only to make them virtuous, but to make them love virtue; not only to make them just, but to make them hunger and thirst after justice. After I read this quote I stop for a minute and I start thinking: Is my journey has a really true end? And I found that the answer is unfortunately no. My real job as a future teacher exists here because it will be to try my best to teach my students in a way that will contribute in making their end true.