The Teaching and Learning Cycle


Teacher or Student?

By Belinda Chee

It was Teacher’s Day and naturally my first thought was of my own mother. She had joined the teaching profession when she was just 18, and at retirement, had taught for 37 years. She was also my first teacher.

I asked her why she had joined the teaching profession. She said that it was there were not many choices of careers for women back in her days. Teaching and nursing were the most common professions for women back then. When I persisted further and asked her what made her stay on despite having to learn new things like Bahasa Malaysia when she was in her mid 30’s, she said, she enjoyed seeing her students develop gradually from the time they first entered school to when they finally grew into their teens. She also mentioned that despite having taught for so many years, she was continually learning as every new batch of students she taught were different and unique in their own right.

I was quite surprised at my mother’s last comment until it dawned on me that the cycle of learning and teaching begins from conception to the grave. Doctors and the medical profession now claim that a child would learn faster if mothers were to speak to them or play them some music while they were still in the mothers’ womb.  Thus, the mothers would also learn about the likes and dislikes of their baby even before the baby is born as the baby responds to the various stimuli. So, yes, the cycle of learning and teaching begins even then.

Everytime I take care of my nieces, which I have been doing periodically since their birth, I find myself fascinated at how fast the human mind learns. When they were just a few months old, my sister and I were just showing them flashcards to get them to visually recognize the words. But at three years old, my niece was able to utter words of three syllables like “orchestra” and “octopus”! By the time she was five, she was already reading Enid Blyton books! So how did these two “students” become teachers?

My sister had delegated the tasks of remembering to lock, close and switch off electrical lighting in her home to these two nieces of mine. One day out of the blue, while we were all back at my parents’ home, they were listing to their grandmother what had not been closed or switched off, and were asking why there was no alarm to be armed for their grandparents’ house. They had a thief break into their home before and the four-year old was advising my mother that it was “dangerous” not to lock all her doors when she was out. (My parents live down south in a more quiet area of Malacca where everyone knows everyone).

Saying that only younger children learn and “teach” us would not be wholly accurate as despite working in the commercial world for more than 14 years, I find that the cycle of learning and teaching continues. When one completes formal education or even university, the ’school of life’ has an even stronger impact. For I have learned much about the advertising, banking, technology and education sectors in my working life that has enabled me to provide advice and practice empathy when I have friends who are in need of a listening ear about their careers and work issues.

Even at retirement, one continues to be teachers and students. My father who had been computer illiterate for some time, persisted pounding slowly on the keyboard to reply to emails from my sister who is in US. Now, he owns a laptop that is faster and even more high-tech than my own office set. He keeps on wanting to get my sister on “Skype” so that they can also chat; not just email! At 68 years of age, the thirst for learning is still avid in him!

Looking at the various models in my family, I have come to the conclusion that everyone of us: be it young or old, working or retired, healthy or infirmed; are all teachers and students during our ‘walk’ on this planet.

So to my mother and everyone reading this, “Happy Teachers Day” and “Happy Learning and Teaching”.
     
  Terms & Conditions