Roland L.

Aparece Educational Proficiency Teaching is an Art and a Science

Facilitating Learning July 24, 2012

I love to teach! Teaching is my vocation in life. Im happy to take this course facilitating learning because this gives me an opportunity to reflect my life as a teacher. For this reason, this reflection is divided into two major sections: The first part explores teaching as an art and the second section deals with teaching as a science. First, teaching is an art. Art is associated with beauty and any human work which is beautiful. Similarly, if teaching is an art, I think, teaching is also associated with beauty and activities which make the teaching-learning process beautiful. As an art, I think teaching is both a gift and a task. It is a gift because only few people have the talent and skills to teach beautifully. Some people I know maybe highly intelligent but they are not effective because they do not possess the gifts of teaching. I think the gifts of teaching include primarily the ability to translate complicated concepts into simple terms using the language best understood by the students. The gift presupposes the love to teach. Indeed, only few people love to teach and only few teachers can teach a lesson is a grand and beautiful manner. This brings as to the next dimension of the art of teaching, that is, teaching is a task. Indeed, to be able to teach in a grand and beautiful manner requires diligence, hard work and discipline. This underscores the reality of teaching as a task. It requires a long experience diligence, hard works and the discipline to study in order to acquire mastery over the subject matter. Reflecting upon this dimension of teaching as task reminds me of my life as a fulltime teacher and a working student. The demands of teaching in a grand and beautiful manner to my students while at the same time studying as a student at the college of law is very tough. Consequently, my life is a bit monotonous these days: university, church, market, and home. Just like the character of the fox in the Little Prince, I am a little bit bored . . . and somehow there is a grain of truth in claiming that only few teachers really love their work because of accumulated tasks. For this reason, teachers generally have a limited life outside the university. This is my situation right now. Aside from the usual 30-unit overload, Im also regular student at the UB College of Law, and the adviser of UB Debate Society. During free time, I usually read, check papers or do marketing. Its alarming! I may not have enough time for love. Now I know why so many of

my teachers before remained single. It beWe seldom have the time socializing outside. My barkadas are not here. They are all in Manila. So, I find my mom as my best friend right now. Good enough I have some friends too who added colors to my life. I count you as one! I even anticipate reading your letters!!! Like the fox I say, if we are friends then it will be as if the sun come to shine on my life! Then look: you see the delivery room and the hospital? I seldom go there. Medical doctors wear white uniforms while professors don't. But since we are friends then the presence of my nursing students wearing white thebrings me back the thought of you. I shall love to listen to their glorious noise. . . their voices shall be music to my ears, hehehe! For this reason I shall love to visit the hospital soon and see you there.

1. Teaching is Science It is systematic It follows different teaching strategies suitable for a particular topic. More so, applies different teaching strategies which are deemed effective to specific age groups.
First, this is concerned about my vocation as a missionary teacher. I have been teaching at the University of Bohol for the past four years and it has been clear to me that my vocation is to be a missionary teacher in my own little way. I may not be a missionary priest, but I will be a missionary teacher. Indeed, if my academic life as educator is simply about survival, then teaching will remain career in my life. I may become an expert soon in the fields of my specialization but my goal is to simply serve my personal needs and the needs of my family. I may be able to satisfy the thirst for knowledge of my students, but it will be only about knowledge and some technical skills. Teaching will always be an eager anticipation of the pay day. On the other hand, if I see my academic life as a pursuit for righteousness, then teaching will be a vocation for me. In this perspective, the teacher transcends beyond personal survival. The teachers who choose righteousness teach both knowledge and values. Personally, as philosophy teacher I will be an agent of cultural transformation. Instead of glorifying the pre-philosophic period wherein they explained and predicted phenomena on the basis of witchcraft, magic and mythology, or simply asked practical questions for survival, my task will be to teach my students how to philosophize, how to explained and predict phenomena on the basis of reason. By choosing righteousness, the horizon of the teachers vision extends beyond my life. Just like the heroic story of Dr.

Jose Rizal. He died long time ago, but his vision about love of country and education remains valid forever. So, in following righteousness, one is building a country.