Reasons Behind It All
If you have read the “About Me” section, you know I enjoy detail. This is one of my most important thoughts behind teaching. We have to guide students in a direction, and if we want them to understand ideas, we have to include detail. This is the case with all subjects, but they must be done carefully to not confuse. Here is my experience of this:
On my first day back at university in 2022, I had my first history class. I sat down with my pencil and looseleaf. I rested in the chair, and suddenly, my professor came in. He set up maps, organized quotes, and had copies of primary documents in front of him. Once class time officially began, he started like a novel. He explained the course and introduced the content. It was magical. He painted a picture of Jean-Paul Marat, Galileo Galilei, and Thomas Aquinas. Since he had primary documents, he could give thought and motive to actions. He painted them as people, not instruments of Time. I remembered the emotions of the individuals and their thoughts. I did not have to write it down if I wanted — I could barely keep up. I watched his excitement and by the end of the first class, I was astonished. My professor found out how to make the lecture theatrical, a true recount of time. I was almost ready to become a historian, but I said to myself, “that, that is what I want to do. I want to give students an experience like this for every piece of information.”
This is the same reason I believe lectures and classes should be theatrical. It brings the students in and gives life to the content. It was much better than any documentary or movie I have watched for any class, and if I can achieve or even surpass my professor’s talent for this, I hope to bring students new content every day. Luckily, my students will not have a three-hour class twice a week, but a one-hour class five days a week to build knowledge and immersion slowly.
In high school, one of my most influential teachers always spoke about enrichment. My teacher spoke about letting students lead their discovery and knowledge through their interests. From this experience, I learned many topics. I could talk to this teacher about anything, and they always shared their knowledge or led me in the right direction. The teacher was always excited when I brought information to them or spoke about an idea. This is where I learned many of my beliefs like personal discovery and self-expression, educating the entire person, and being a guide to all fields. In this class, we were allowed to finish assignments as quickly or as slowly as we wanted (with a few due dates in batches), and students had an assignment for their own creativity. Here is my experience:
I started my assignment, and I could build whatever I wanted. My mind flew in all directions. I could build a spaceship, a model of my favourite video game character, or even a house. As I searched for ideas, it came to me. I was going to build a kingdom good enough to be in a video game. I initialized the program and started making the base of the kingdom. There were motes, bridges, cathedrals, and a harbour. Weeks went by as I worked (Because I finished assignments early), and I learned so much about the program. I became efficient with hotkeys and understood how to texture items. I was so happy, and every day my teacher came to check on my work. My teacher motivated me on the task, and I even worked on it outside of school. When I came to the teacher after over one hundred hours of working on the kingdom, he was astonished. I used functions further than the course intended. I asked my teacher where I could use this in real life, and they explained it wonderfully. I started to ask how the 3D printer worked, and I became invested in others’ learning as well. I helped students in the class by asking what they were making and giving suggestions and how to do things, and so on. Soon, everyone started to become invested and wanted more from the course. Students started asking questions outside the bounds of the course, influencing my teacher to learn more.
It is from this experience I learned that it is about leading the students to be excited about the topics. If we can give students choices in how to display their knowledge, it will push them to complete assignments and go far beyond our expectations. While students do these assignments with freedom, they discover more about themselves and ask for more. As well, since students were asking more from the course and asking questions from connecting topics, my teacher had to learn more and guide students in many directions. This is why teachers must be a guide in all fields and can never stop learning. I hope to one day influence students as my teachers did.