‘As you teach, you learn’ Great motivation from a passionate experienced teacher
By: Meshack Sifuna
A great philosopher once said, best teachers don’t teach from the work plan, they teach from the heart, and this is evidently true as executed by Mrs Lydiah Josephine, a young, smart and energetic teacher who has changed the lives of many with her optimistic teaching as a call from heaven. The main thing that has pressurised me to share her story in this compendious piece of writing,is her exemplary work who has mastered the skill of going for the ball instead of just playing around the ball when mixing chalk with challenges.
From the interview, I discovered one thing, she is such an honest and calm teacher who was ready to share what it really means by being a true and realistic teacher. Honesty is something that many teachers lack when it comes to professionalism. Things that they teach in class are totally different from what they portray in their real life situations.
From my own experience, teaching is one of those courses or feat professions that requires one to be thick skinned and cope up with different minds of people ranging from the community members, parents and students from different backgrounds. Normally teaching is taken to sound easy but in real sense it’s one of those hard nuts to crack carriers. And this is evidently true that we have seen many people who happened to be teachers engaging in other things.
While too many it seems impossible, to Mrs Lidya is something that she enjoys doing most of her time. She does not take it as her career, she is doing so because she is in love with it. Despite the fact that since 2013 she has been serving as a teacher in different schools, too many, it might sound not so many years of experience, but the impact in different schools she has served she has made is immense compared to other teachers who have taught for so many years who majorly serve for salary. From her talks, passion is everything. She emphases the need to love what you do. The moment you love what you do, then automatically you will succeed in it. You will do the unexpected.
She says that the problem with teachers of today is that they are after money, not their students understanding the concept. To her, that’s like doing something next to nothing. In the same vein, she believes that as a teacher, you should not just teach your student to pass exams, instead make him/her get the skills. She reminded me of this scholar, Shakuntala Devi, who said, education is not just about going to school and getting degrees, it’s about widening your skills and absorbing the truth about life. This is something that Mrs Lidya has been applying ever since she discovered her call as a teacher. In many schools today, students are taught to pass exams not to be knowledged.
To her, Competency Based Curriculum (CBC) is a form that she has welcomed and embraced so much. She believes more in applying the knowledge learnt in class rather than just having this bookish form of education. Her brains have made her loved by students at the same time hated by some of her colleagues who are mediocre and conformists. Anyway it’s ripe fruit that is always thrown stones, she believes that.
Managing her family together with her professionalism is seemed as a challenge not only to her but also other teachers. But this has made her to come up with different unique and exemplary strategies making sure she survives in both. Waking up as early as 4 a.m, read a book, prepare her family and finally at 6 o’clock that is when she reports to school, requires more commitment and sacrifice.
The most interesting part of this professional is that as you teach, you learn. This serves as the one of those factors that has been making her remain a star. According to her, teachers have three loves, love for learning, love for learners and the love of bringing the first two loves together.
When solving problems, she doesn’t believe canning as the only form of punishment that is appropriate when there is need to do so. She says, there are so many better ways other than that. Negotiation and openness is something that she values a lot. She prefers talking to the student in a language than he/she listens instead of beating.
Poor remuneration and delayed payments she says are so far her challenges, but her passion in teaching is stronger than that. Despite that, she says she can’t drop it. Lack of enough resources in many schools she has taught serves as general challenge observed. But she has kept on going and won many awards. Her love is to see her students growing up to be real ladies and gentlemen who remain disciplined and beneficial to the society. Her prayer is too see more teachers coming up like her, not money oriented but focuses on disseminating knowledge and skills to students.
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