5 TED Talks on Education Part 1

Mr Hallows and some of my class mates - Mr Hallows gave up
some of his evenings during our matric year to give us night lessons
so that we could complete our science syllabus on time.

While I was at varsity I was lucky enough to work for a company called Teach Me 2. They're a private tutoring company and offer tutors for people from university down to school level. I tutored mainly matric and Gr 11 science and maths and I really loved it.

Recently, the Teach Me 2 team posted an awesome article on facebook. It has links to 5 TED talks all centred around the theme of education and all of these talks got me thinking.

The first talk is by Rita Pierson and it focuses on how every child needs a champion. It also focuses on how the role of the champion is to encourage and build relationships with the children that they champion.

During my junior and high school career I was lucky enough to come across a few teachers who have been incredible at inspiring and encouraging their classes to learn. There was my Grade 4 teacher, Mrs Anderson, who encouraged us to listen and do maths in our head with her stories of Mrs Blobs. My Grade 6 teacher, Mr Randall, had an incredible sense of fun and we spent lots of time playing games in which we, hopefully, learnt something. I clearly remember the speech he gave us on the first day of term where he told us that he expected us to behave like adults (as much as you can in Grade 6) and that he would do his best to treat us like adults. Then there was my Grade 7 maths teacher, Mr Eburne. I can't remember why he sticks out in my head as a good teacher, other than his morning quizzes, I think it was the relationships that he built up with us as a class. 

In Grade 8 I had an awesome Maths teacher by the name of Mrs de Jager. She had incredible energy and taught us a song so that we would never forget the Pythagoras Theorem - I can still remember the tune and words! My matric art teacher, Mrs Conyngham, loved to share her knowledge of art history with us and would always give us constructive advice on our practical pieces. Mr Hallows, my matric science teacher, had an awesome sense of humour and always used to teach us a new topic by first talking about it to us, then writing it down on the board and then having us write it down for our own notes. And lastly, my matric Computer Science teacher, Mrs Ward. I ended up being the only person to take Comp Sci in my year and we had amazing one-on-one lessons that often ended up in chats, since I often finished my tasks early. To this day, I use the practical skills that Comp Sci taught me on a daily basis, while my maths and science skills help me to understand and troubleshoot physical issues in our plant.

The one thing that all of these teachers have in common is their ability to connect and build relationships with their students, which is the essence of the message that Rita Pierson is trying to get across. I have only just realised that most of my inspirational teachers taught subjects that I then went on to pursue at a university level. Along with my parents, these teachers really stand out as being the ones pushing me and my classmates to go further. They were also my champions and I feel incredibly blessed that I had so many to inspire me to push my boundaries and go further than I thought I could go. 

And now, I'm left wondering, how much of my career path was truly my own choice, how much of my career was chance and how much of it was due to the fact that I had incredible teachers in the maths and sciences?