25 ANSWERS FOR NEW TEACHERS

Becoming a teacher is an illustrious process, that involves alignment of your mind and heart

with the requirements of your students. Taking the decision to be a teacher is not an easy one ,as it entails a life dedicated to a great cause- to help create responsible, learned citizens of the world of tomorrow.

Starting out as a new teacher can be mind boggling and expose a person to a plethora of questions, regarding the best ways to carve a niche in this reverent profession. As a teacher with an experience of more than twelve years of training and mentoring students, I have tried to enlist helpful nuggets of advice for budding teachers that can be instrumental in defining their path and trajectory ahead as trainers and guides.

1. The first and foremost thing that should be the driving force for you at all points of time, is to understand what motivated you to enter this field. Stay true to your vision,focus and never deflect from your chosen path,no matter how trying the circumstances might get.
2. Patience is a virtue that would always come in handy when dealing with various situations related to your students. Inculcate this virtue and try incorporating it in even the basic life scenarios.
3. Whether you are dealing with a class of fifty students or ten, the way you would manage your daily sessions and lessons should be clearly established. A disciplined approach to routine-setting is always helpful.
4. Make interesting lesson plans for each session so that the students find the process of learning, intriguing and interesting.
5. Sometimes,you teach best by assuming the role of a learner. See how the situation is, from the perspective of your student.
6. Encourage a mutually respectful behavioural standpoint at all times. Unruly behaviour should be compassionately but firmly dealt with.
7. When tackling bad behaviour on the part of your student,make sure you adhere to a reformatory course of action rather than a penalising one.
8. Keep your channels of communication open with your students at all times. They should be able to approach you with their problems and challenges and your efforts should be directed towards finding solutions together.
9. With parents of your students,the communication needs to be polite and reassuring. Usually parents are worried about their children and they know that the role of teachers is supremely important in their child’s life.Make sure you validate their belief and work proactively with them for the greater benefit of their ward.
10. For students not performing well in academics,corrective course modules can be helpful. Providing extra coaching sessions to them,with a motivating stance can be extremely beneficial.
11. Technology can be a saving grace in many situations, since it’s a tech savvy generation that you are dealing with. Some things are best taught with the help of interactive digital devices.
12. Ask lots of questions from your mentees in order to incite brainstorming. Let them come up with weird ideas and have an uninhibited discussion on value- points.
13. Teaching is not just about academic preparation but also coaching your students for their lives ahead. Let them learn valuable life- skills like discipline, perseverance and persistence.
14. Be a role model that they can emulate and admire. Teachers can be great inspirers and trend-setters.
15. Take time to develop your own interests outside the teaching premise. Follow your passions and keep learning things, that enrich you as an individual.
16. Focus on what you can change in your students’ lives.Never leave them unaffected, make them more empowered as individuals than what they were when they first met you.
17. Don’t let their mistakes discourage and disillusion them.Make them realise that failures and mistakes are great stepping stones to a life of learning and success.
18. Avoid nagging students about their small foibles.Ignore the trifles and concentrate on the bigger picture.
19. Use clever psychology to achieve goals. Direct , cruel reprimanding will not help, instead let them intrinsically realise their follies and improvise.
20. You affect lives more than you can imagine. Make sure you remember this always.
21. Develop regimes that can strengthen leadership and team- building expertise in your trainees.
22. Concentrate on what is best in each child. Make your student aware of it and inspire him/ her to build his/her core competence around it.
23. Thorough knowledge of your chosen topic and subject is non- negotiable. Your students come to you for benefitting from your reservoir of knowledge about a particular subject.
24. Add something unique to your teaching style that sets you apart from other trainers; let it be the defining edge in your technique.
25. Recognise that teaching is hard work and let this knowledge take you from strength to strength. Nothing respectable is achieved without putting in dedicated hours to one’s goal- achievement.

Welcome to the club, new teachers! Your journey is sure to be enriching, transformational and aspirational. Keep rising and shining!

Varuna Mehta

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