Finding the Light

How I came to Teaching

During my schooling days in an elite school, although it may not have been the intention of the school administration, it felt like every additional accolade served to embellish our academic portfolio so that we can use it to apply to another elite place. Although, I personally did not set out to compete with my peers, the environment made me feel inferior to the rest. When I saw my more capable classmates achieving greater accolades, be it in academics, sports, or other “holistic” domains, it affected my confidence in my own abilities. Not only that, it also made me question the purpose of my education. Did all those efforts serve only to get ahead in the rat race? If I did not achieve as much as my peers, does that mean I will give less value to society? After my ‘A’ levels, people I met led me to become closer to my religion, Islam. I met a religious teacher that has become my mentor in life, and through him and many other teachers, I learnt that each person created on this Earth has a purpose. He or she may not be a high achiever, but each person has a purpose to fulfil and brings value to society through their various strengths and experiences. It was not easy to change my mindset but overtime, I began to be grateful for each turn, U-turn or detour that happened in my life. It became a source of wisdom and strength for me to go forward.

Although I did not set out to be a teacher, those turns, U-turns and detours led me to it. At first, the inferior feeling developed from school made me convinced that due to my introverted nature, teaching was not an option for me. Back then, I shivered whenever I spoke in front of an audience. During my initial job search, I took my chances to apply to the Ministry of Education (MOE) to teach. But I believe that as I was not convinced of my abilities to teach then, I was unconvincing to the panel and was rejected. Nonetheless, I received an opportunity to teach at a private school after going through many interview rejections. I was accepted and taught primary English, Math, and Science for one and a half years. As I reflected on my life journey thus far, throughout my growing-up years, I was often in the capacity of teaching somebody, be it a sibling, a junior in school and even fellow undergraduates when I was a communication coach. When the opportunity came to teach professionally in the private school, I realised that I could overcome my weaknesses and build a professional career out of this. I applied again to MOE and was eventually accepted to the Postgraduate Diploma in Education Programme (PGDE) program.

My Teaching Identity and Philosophy

During the Teaching Preparation Enhancement Program, we sat in for a talk on self-care. It made me reflect on the importance of self-care - if your own well-being is not at the optimal level, you will not be able to carry out your duties as a teacher effectively. I remember an experience in the private school where the class was getting out of control and I shouted at my students as I allowed the built-up stress and emotions to get the better of me. I could immediately see the effect on my students, especially those who were not contributing to the noise. If I allowed this to continue, not only would it affect my positive teacher-student relationship that I have built with my students, but it would also create distance between the students and me and the damage may become irreparable.

Hence, we do need conventional self-care methods so that we can take our mind away from our stressors temporarily. After some rest, we can then return with a fresh state of mind. However, the nature of teaching is that you are constantly inundated with stressors from all angles. If the source of the stress is not unpacked and resolved, it might erode our effectiveness as educators significantly. I quote a part of our teacher’s pledge: “We will be true to our mission to bring out the best in our students. We will be exemplary in the discharge of our duties and responsibilities.” The key words here are “bringing out the best” and “exemplary”. This duty that we have undertaken expects us to be at our best, if not all the time, most of the time. However, dealing with the challenges of the job may mean that we may not be at our best for our students. So, the question is how do we keep finding that motivation to deal with whatever comes our way. We need something beyond just self-care.

This made me recall the words from a former principal. She said to the group I was in that in Sanskrit, the word for teacher is “guru”, which means the dispeller of darkness. We must strive to be the light that guides the way for our students to reach their potential in all domains. We must not be the flame whose light shines bright for a time, only for it to die out. This is akin to the initial passion and fervor that suffers a burnout. Rather, the light we have within us must be like the sun whose light dispels darkness completely. To achieve that, we must find for ourselves that light source that never fades. Some may choose to follow a role model like famous teachers whose patience in adversities and commitment to the development of their students were exemplary. Some may choose ideals and standards that guides one’s own beliefs and choices. As for me, I put my faith in God to help me at all times. Through constant remembrance of His grace whose light never fades, I gain strength to walk in this path. Thus, it is important for us to ground our teaching philosophy under an ideal or a standard because we need something immaterial and non-perishable to hold onto to keep us going. 

It is important for us to ground our teaching philosophy under an ideal or a standard because we need something immaterial and non-perishable to hold onto to keep us going. 

As a result of my faith, I believe that deep in each student is a pure soul created by God, no matter what background or profile they come with. When they come under my tutelage, it is a trust that I have undertaken to ensure that each student grows. It is this belief that gives me the light to strive for every student. Hence, my teaching philosophy is that every student can learn, and it is up to us teachers to find a way to help them learn to be good and law-abiding citizens that contribute to the community and nation. Due to the differing nature of students, we have to be champions for our students and not give up on any one of them. Every student is a diamond in the rough who is waiting for a person to pick them up and polish them. We have to be that person.

Implications to My Teaching Practice

Because of this realisation of the value of every individual, I really hope to create an inclusive and supportive environment for my students. We do want to celebrate the achievements of our students but at the same time, we want to remind students that success is not only measured by awards and accolades but also what kind of person you shape up to be. Also, I want to remind students that they do not need an award to be a contributor to society. What they need is an education that prepares them for life and to be a good and just person. Our purpose in life is greater than just qualifications, awards and accolades that will be forgotten with time. Everyone has a role to play in society and that role is important. 

Henceforth, I laid out several learning goals for my students so that they will begin to value themselves as an individual. Firstly, they must realise that their learning journey is only beginning at primary school. I will urge my students to be on this road of life-long learning, and to keep improving and learning from mistakes without making achievements the sole purpose of education. They should not let early failures limit their potential. Rather, they should learn the purpose of failure in life (i.e., a moment for reflection and a reminder to be humble) from a young age so that they can build resilience in the face of adversity. This is greatly facilitated by the fact that our education system is shifting away from a sole focus on grades and achievements. I would facilitate this by telling them stories of people who took different pathways in life and continued to seek knowledge and skills. Eventually, they became important contributors to society. For example, I had a classmate in secondary school who was falling behind the rest. Today, he is a social worker helping many others. Another schoolmate was on the verge of despair and depression, yet he managed to draw strength from that experience, and he is now a motivational speaker with his own business. I hope these inspirational stories will serve to give students hope and the motivation to take on life’s challenges.

My second goal for my students is to make them realise the connections of what they are learning in school to the real world. I will strive to make their learning intentional. I want to show students the clear links between their school subjects and skills learnt in school to real world applications. This would inject purpose to their learning and instill within them the intrinsic motivation to do well in school. For instance, during my contract teaching stint, I created a routine for my Primary 2 students to recite an intention before every lesson, “I learn English to learn the best words to say and write so that we can make others happy.” The reason why I wrote this intention was because I wanted to make the connection between English competency and communication skills. When we can make ourselves understood clearly in different contexts (i.e., using the best words for eachcontext), it breaks the communication barrier and creates a harmonious environment, thus making others happy. This is the foundation for so many things in life, be it on a personal, family or even national level.

My third goal for my students is to focus on gaining small wins regularly. Students may be overwhelmed by the different skillsets and knowledge they need to do well in a subject. This is exacerbated if they are not given the right exposure at a younger age. At primary 1 and 2, when students see their more capable peers doing much better than them in mixed ability classes, it is natural for them to compare themselves to others. However, it can become unhealthy if they start to feel inferior and think that they may not be able to catch up to them. To reverse this, I can guide students to focus on self-improvement instead and take on a growth mindset. Growth mindset strategies can be taught to students like the power of saying ‘not yet’ when faced with an obstacle. It is important to make their small gains visible to them. One way I can do this is to translate the different language skills listed in the curriculum into a gamified progress chart. Each skill or knowledge they need to learn for the year can be skills that they need to practise and demonstrate to reach the next “level”. After reaching each level, they can earn some rewards. This is also reflective of the spiral progression principle within the English curriculum. As the Malay saying goes, “sikit-sikit, lama-lama jadi bukit”, which means a little everyday will lead to huge gains over time. So, as they “level up”, they will gain higher proficiency and feel less overwhelmed with the whole process.

This finally leads up to how my teaching philosophy and my learning goals for my students play out in my classroom practice. In the second assignment for QED50B Pedagogical Practices, we were given the creative freedom to use any kind of medium to showcase what we have taken away from this and other courses. I chose to write a short story that depicted a teacher who was a champion for every student. For those who were struggling, she created a differentiated curriculum that involved scaffolding (learnt in Educational Psychology, Pedagogical Practices and Teaching English I), differentiation by process (learnt in Pedagogical Practices), spiral progression (learnt in Teaching English I) and positive student-teacher relationship as well as creating an inclusive classroom community (learnt in CCE and Teaching and Managing Learners).  I wrote about how a struggling student was pulled out during class for mini lessons when the rest of the class were working on their own. The mini lessons had the same learning objective as the lessons that the rest of the class received from the teacher, but it was pitched at a lower difficulty nearer to the zone of proximal development of the struggling student. As the student improved with time, the teacher could take away the scaffolding in stages and he eventually learnt at the same pace as the rest of class. Although the result maybe an ideal situation, differentiated instruction will be key in my own practice to ensure that the learning needs of my students are being met.

Conclusion

The purpose of this chapter is to showcase how important it is to form a clear teaching philosophy and how it helps align our practice towards an ideal, thus giving us the strength to continue our duty as teachers. We need to find a light source that always guides us so that we can be the light for others. Hence, I really urge student-teachers to take this process seriously as forming your teaching philosophy is not just fluff; it is the foundation for our teaching journey.