How I became best teacher

Well if you are looking to see some guidelines to becoming a “best” teacher or anything of that sort, this is not the post for you.

What even got me into teaching?

One faithful day, Oluwadamilola Akinbowale called me and asked me to come take a class on website design, because the tutor meant to take the course was no longer available due to some reasons, and then she didn’t even give me a choice. There was no option to say No! She just said “thanks” and voila I became the web design facilitator. 👨‍💻

How was it for me?

It was a beautiful experience, before I left for my first class, I had developed cold feet. This was not really my thing, last time I tried teachng, it wasn’t particularly organized well and so no good results. I was here hoping all will go well, I almost bailed on Oluwadamilola Akinbowale, but I gathered all the strength possible and moved, when I got there, I switched to my alter ego (if you know you know) that plays a lot and introduced myself to all the students and asked for their first names so I can address them personally, I made it my number 1 duty to address them with their first names, that gave us the connection needed to get work done.

I had always dreamed of a classroom situation like that while growing up — a playful yet serious environment. All through the program, we laughed and played and I kinda found a nick name for almost all my students.

I most times prayed to God for wisdom as some students were probably older than I am. And I am grateful to God for a class of students willing to learn.

Honestly, half the glory that comes with being the best facilitator should be given to my students for being the best set of students anyone could ask for.

What makes them the best is not because they were grabbing all that was taught at the speed of light, No! It was because they were real, we interacted on the same level, some would argue that my method could be counterproductive, but here we are one down and I will try it again when I teach the next cohort and by God’s grace it will yield better results.

The methods I employed

First I made friends with my students. I made sure we were friends, then it was easy to get them to talk in class and not be afraid of their teacher. Soon enough, they were able to pull me back easily when they didn’t understand anything I said. We cracked jokes, we ate gala together, pizza was for our celebration, biscuits on most days. There were days we didn’t talk website, we talked about who we are and what we do asides the class, our families and everything around us.

Next thing I did was to make teachers out of my students, so anytime one student didn’t understand something, I would tell another to teach us and that got the students involved in the learning process and it became fun all the way. Some started looking forward to days they will teach. Everybody wanted to know one thing or the other so they will be able to teach it properly.

Next we moved to assignments and projects, I started giving them class projects, I broke them into groups to work on mini projects. That engaged their minds more, they got to understand team work in developing products. I was particularly impressed by Okwudili’s performance. Okwudili was one of my students, he paid attention to details, one time he built an entire webpage on paper with all the classnames he was going to use and I ended up learning from him.

Next, we started cloning other websites. We cloned a part of Facebook, Google, ATC Nigeria’s website, and Upskill’s website. This was the most engaging and tasking part for even me the teacher. My students were thrilled by the fact that they could build websites that they had visited and used before.

The Unexpected Merit

It was a normal day, I was going about my normal business when I got a call from this same Oluwadamilola Akinbowale again asking me to attend the graduation ceremony. Unfortunately I couldn’t. She eventually told me that I received an award for being the best facilitator.

Wait, best what? 😮😱…

Takeaway

Not all conventional ways of doing things is the only way to do it. Try out other methods. What works for A might not necessarily work for B. I employed unconventional methods and it worked out well.