Teaching Experiences

Things I learn and see as a teacher, just for the fun of it.

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Sometimes even the smallest learner can surprise you and make you feel warm inside. I asked my little ones to paint their favorite place and one boy asks me, if he can paint the earth, because he loves being here and being with everyone.

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So, we try to teach painting in our second term at school, and I am currently trying to teach the basics of landscape painting. I try to teach with as much realistic and everyday referencing as I can. Until one of my students wanted to paint clouds. I tried describing the process, and went back to my failsafe of lets look outside, see what they look like. Only to realize, it is winter here in Namibia,and we do not get clouds during this time of year. Thus it was me and my student standing outside, looking, in vain, at a bright, clear sky.

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For the love of the learners

It is amazing to see how the learners that sit in front of you change everyday. It is a wonderful experience to see someone who has been struggling with a concept suddenly grasp it and watch the light go on in their eyes. On the other hand, it can be heartbreaking to watch them fail and all you want to do is make it right for them. Standing back to let a learner succeed or fail on their own can be the most difficult task a teacher can face.

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Things I learnt in my first year.

So here I am, after my first year of teaching. I teach primary school art, from gr 1 to gr7, and I learnt so so much. Here are a few things no one tells you when you start your new job.

1. Children, no matter the age, like to share. The idea of not relating things that happen at home has not yet occurred to them. The little ones love retelling stories that would probably embarrass the daylights out of their parents, in the most nonchalant manner.

2. Kids with paintbrushes are lethal to any clothing you happen to be wearing. Whether it’s glue or printing ink, it will somehow find its way onto your clothing, or their own.

3. One second of inattention is enough for disaster to ensue. Turn your back for one second and there will be fire.

4. Anything is possible. From paintbrushes in the strangest places, putty erasers hidden in books, to eaten wax crayons. It all happens.

5. There is no end to how kids can surprise you if you show interest in them and their work.

6. Your colleagues are,more often than not, a source for inspiration, help when you really need it and the most resourceful people you will ever meet.