Lessons that Matter Most

In the past three weeks, I have had my share of ups and downs with regards to myself and my competence in this teaching world that I belong in. I guess it really comes from the fact that I’m a different kind of teacher and although I can appreciate the value of that most of the time, every now and then, I find myself in painted into a corner, especially when it comes to doing things by the book. Same goes for standardized assessments.

What kind of teacher am I to begin with? Well, I definitely am not the conventional type of educator. Perhaps this is one reason why I adapted very well to the transformative learning framework that the university I teach in employs. Since the very beginning of my college teaching days, I already used alternative means of getting my kids to learn. I’ve always loved having toys and storybooks around to make my lessons more real to the people I teach. My philosophy of teaching, after all, is not just to know the facts and figures but to understand, appreciate and make sense of them all, because what’s the point of just knowing if you can’t apply it, right?

Lessons that matter most, in my opinion, are those that really change lives. I can equate this to my weight loss journey, for one. While I know in my head so many ways to lose weight, and that there are countless diets that are espoused around me, both on and offline, I understand it will not work unless I make a conscious effort about it. My up and down struggle with weight has always been because of a lack of education about what to do with myself to get to where I wanna go (oh, before you laud me on that, I have to admit this is quite inspired by several posts and sites I’ve read, such as HCG diet Austin and similar fora that talk about lifestyle education as a key ingredient to weight loss).

This is what I mean by lessons being more than just head knowledge, and that has always been a guiding principle in my own teaching. For me, it doesn’t matter if you get an A or not, what matters is that you truly learned what I wanted you to learn in the first place. Don’t get me wrong, though. This doesn’t mean I oppose grades completely and think it is useless. My point here is just that we shouldn’t put too much weight on it, especially since people learn in many different ways. As I tell my little kids all the time: it doesn’t matter if you’re number 1, what matters is that you did your number 1 best

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