I should say I am just a novice teacher. I started a career in education in my 20s which started when there came a time that I did not want to finish course in college. It was because I had so many personal problems and besides, I was working and receiving a regular paycheck then. I thought why would I aspire to finish school when I am already receiving salary. Although just with a meager amount, it could last me for a 15-day period until I receive the next one.
So to continue the story, I worked and worked until I got hooked with just hanging out with friends and grew lazy to report to work. Cutting it short, I quit my job and rather stayed with friends, chat with them, and have fun. Until I realize that it was no fun after all. My good friend told me I should not put my good mind to waste and direct a future plan. I could start, she had phrased, by enrolling in a university. She suggested one for me which would not cost me so much as it is a state run university for teachers.
I enrolled in this university a little shameful as I should be the oldest in the class. I was already in my mid-20s and starting college should be in your teens. After the boring entrance examinations, interview, and the surprising physical examination (I did not have the idea that I was to strip), I got admitted (again) in this university (this was not the first time as I had started college life at age 15 and was shifting from one course to another every semester for two years...ending, a college dropout!). However, my intention then was just to please my friend that suggested it.
As I was told to repeat everything, I had to take the same basic subjects (Math, English, P.E., etc.). My favorite then was Math, yet I was accelerated in English. I was taking a sophomore English course instead of having it with the freshmen.
One of my Communications Arts Skills course requirement was to complete a baby thesis. Since Math was my favorite, I chose the topic difficulties in basic mathematics skills encountered by my classmates. My research included peer tutoring as a strategy to lessen if not, erase the difficulty. During the process, I was told by one of my classmates, "why does it appear easier when you are the one teaching us, but if it is our teacher, it seems very difficult."
It was that statement that struck me. I reflected for an explanation. I thought, maybe because I already had taken the course before, maybe because I was just more exposed to the concepts, maybe because my classmates previous training were not as they were supposed to be, maybe because I was just smarter than them, maybe because our teacher was just too traditional, or maybe because I was just a student like them and that I know and feel how we would rather have the lesson be taught.
That sparked the moment! I aced my research paper and continued a career to be an English teacher instead because of the higher amount of scholarship grant awarded to me. In the process, I gobbled on every literary text there is from the classic to the modern ones. I started to wake up with literature and slept with it, sometimes not sleeping at all. Although with the common issues of a university life, I successfully graduated and having successfully taken the licensure examination for teachers as well, I became a full pledged teacher.
At present, I hold a 10-year experience in teaching all spent in the three levels of education. I have taught for the early years, the upper grades, the middle schoolers, the high schoolers, and even in the university for professional courses. Even though I had several experiences already, I still consider myself a novice. Regularly I put in my mind that there are several theories that regularly updates trends in researches in pedagogy and teaching, the teacher in the classroom is still the one that knows it best--that is achieving mastery. And the easiest and surest way to assure it is through repetition.
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