Putting It Together and Starting Again -Another Model

After being a teacher for almost 20 years, it has been in the last two, as I re-entered the academic field that I have had the greatest opportunity to reflect upon what I do, and how I do it in contrast with the knowledge of experts. It has been tremendously helpful to be able to look at what my practice, my worries, the sudden insights, and find out that there is a place for them in theories and other people’s experiences.

I think it is in the nature of being a teacher that you can’t help but ponder at the results of your efforts, and try to find new and better ways to accomplish the educational goal you have set for yourself and for the students you guide into the adventure of learning.

Some people say that we teach as we have been taught, I think it is true up to a point, because you also teach as differently as possible from the way you were taught (from the things you used to hate), and you also teach in the way you like to learn, whether you are kinesthetic, or more orally oriented, or visual.

I have seen people who (in their personal lives) always do the same things and their teaching strategies haven’t changed either. I also know people who are curious and eclectic, and so is their teaching style, they are highly creative, but often disorganized.

We all have ideas, and experiences that would be wonderful to tap, so we can grow as professionals and people, but we often don’t feel confident enough to put our thoughts in writing, even though we often dare to experiment with our students….

In Costa Rica, the rich experience gained by teachers about what works and doesn’t, is mostly lost, because we do not reflect and share our findings as part of the normal course of our profession. We buy the books other foreign teachers help develop, and do our best to adapt the methodologies they propose to our contexts, but the knowledge gained through our work is not reintroduced into the creative loop. On the contrary, we try to change our contexts to make the student population conform to the results expected (and indicated) by the books.

We have to find the time, and the money, to gather our teachers’ collective knowledge, and use it to create more sophisticated resources that they can use in a variety of contexts for teaching.