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A True Teacher?

“Guru sejati lebih rela menjadi murid daripada mempertahankan keguruannya” (a true teacher is more willing to be a student than to defend his teachership).

I stumbled upon this amazing quote while browsing thru my facebook friends’ status. Posted by a renowned scriptwriter and a musician, Isa Kamari, I cant help but to believe that there’s a deep meaning behind it.  Though I am not sure what  he really meant or how he defines the meaning of ‘teacher’ and ’student’, but I do agree with this quote. How I see it is that a teacher should remain as student i.e. to be humble while continue to learn, seek knowledge and be open with comments or questions. Also, there should not be any ‘teacher-ego’ while teaching as that could set a barrier for a 2 way learning hence put that teacher as though he is in charge or superior than those students, just because of the knowledge he has. That’s just not right, I thought.

As for me, I have always believed in learning while teaching. What I’m doing is more like a sharing of what I have rather than teaching or molding them to some ’subject’ or ‘person’. Furthermore, I enjoy being with them like their own peer, or sister. In fact, they do call me ‘kak’ (sister) outside/after class, which I’m ok with it. Back to the belief, I mean it literally too, that sometimes I would figured out or learnt something new of the subjects I teach even after years of learning and teaching. Simply say, what u learn have no end.

Anyway, back to my class. Today’s class was good. Nothing unpleasant at all. Students listened and did what they were told to. And since I have start to take note of their attendance twice; in the middle and end of class, they no longer ask if they could go back earlier coz they knew the attendance sheet will be submitted to school’s office. : )

I gave them an exercise on Arabic dialogue. They were supposed to write the response/answer to the given dialogue (the same dialogue that they memorised during previous lesson), and translated it. Also, I’ve written some Arabic verbs for them to copy, and to memorise it the next lesson.