TEACHERS are an extremely important people of any society for a multitude of reasons. They are the people who educate the youth of society who in turn become the leaders of the next generation of people. Today we take time to reflect on our teachers who helped us developed our knowledge so that we can go on in life and be responsible and productive members of our society.
Solomon Women Newspaper interviewed one of our local teacher and this is what she shares.
SWN: What is your name?
Neyleen Laemane Maeohu (NLM): My name is Neyleen Laemane Maeohu, from Small Malaita.
SWN: What school are you serving?
NLM: I am serving at Florence Young Christian School, as a high school English teacher for the past 10 years since 2003.
SWN: Why do you want to teach?
NLM: I‘ve plenty…, the first motivation I got was from my father who is a teacher. Every day the talk around dinner was about teaching and students so I was exposed at an early age to teaching. So I wanted to make the same positive impact on somebody’s life too. So when I reached secondary school I just love being around students, I liked the way my teachers impacted the lives of their students and that in return made me want to do the same profession. Second I see teaching as an interesting career, because you will never get bored, every day is a new experience for you.
SWN: What subject are you teaching?
NLM: I am teaching English in both junior and senior forms at Florence Young.
SWN: What is your philosophy of education?
NLM: My philosophy of education as a teacher is we must recognize the child or student as an individual with needs to be met. Therefore my aim is to help that individual to realize his or her potential and build on from there to meet those needs. And to make sure that the learning environment is safe and conducive to the learner.
SWN: What do you like best about teaching?
NLM: I love everything about being a teacher, I love the challenges. I see the challenges that I have today as a way to build for tomorrow’s challenges. It gives me joy to see that I have impacted on someone’s’ life. For instance in the classroom, when I see the smile on the students face when they have learnt something new, that gives me joy. It is challenging but very rewarding when you see your ex-students become doctors, lawyers, bankers, business people etc, that in itself is really rewarding. It gives me deep satisfaction to see the worth of my hands down life’s’ lane.
SWN: What are your strengths as a teacher?
NLM: Now I can say I am confident. This is because I used the challenges I faced to enhance my strength. I see challenges as a positive enhancement to my teaching career. Weaknesses? As a mother I take the attitude of caring that I sometimes become too lenient with my students, overlooking their mistakes in class.
SWN: Describe your student teaching experience?
NLM: I did my first teaching experience at my home, Riverside. At first, it was nerve racking, the lesson plan I had prepared was forgotten, and everything flew out of the widow because I was too nervous. But gradually everything fell into place and teaching has become part of me, and I am not dreaming of ever giving up teaching.
SWN: What was your biggest problem in teaching students?
NLM: My biggest problem is when students, especially bigger boys and girls become stubborn and I have to find a way to get around them and bring them back on track.
SWN: How would you work with students who perform below grade level, especially those from disadvantaged backgrounds?
NLM: I have to make sure that the teaching approaches I used fit the level of that particular student with learning difficulties. I have to identify the weakness or the level of difficulty. After that I will build on the teaching strategy to target that student and then evaluate and reflect on the best next step to take. At the end of the day I had to make sure that none of my student is left out.
SWN: Describe a time in your life when you experienced some type of failure?
NLM: The one time I felt as a failure was when a group of my students got suspended. Therefore as their class teacher I was called to see the school principal. I saw myself as a failure because I felt I never did enough to keep them from breaking the school rules. How did you handle this? I accepted that failure and then built from those mistakes.
SWN: Describe a successful lesson you taught?
NLM: I have no one particular successful lesson but the best lessons are ones that impact my students and then came back and tell me years later that the lesson had impacted their lives. A successful lesson is one that targets all levels of learners in the classroom.
SWN: Describe a lesson that didn’t go very well?
NLM: I did a lesson on reading comprehension about Papua New Guinea, and introduced everything about PNG but then I never looked up the date when PNG became independent. So when I had to explain its independence, I was stuck and looked very foolish in front of my students and had to give one good excuse just to leave my class and look it up on Google.
SWN: What did you learn from this experience as a teacher?
NLM: I learnt that I had to really do my research well before going into class.
SWN: If you could change one thing about our education system, what would that be?
NLM: As a teacher, I would like to see the quality of the education system be improved. The education system should cater for everybody, all levels of learning. Currently, we use exams to push out students who do not meet the criteria and focus only on the clever students. We need to put in place mechanisms to cater for the dropouts apart from the vocational schools.
SWN: Any finally remarks to our readers?
NLM: If you are reading this, take a moment to thank your teachers and bless them. Make known to someone the importance of teachers.
