Tips to Improve your Teaching Skills

Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world.
Nelson Mandela

If you are planning a volunteer experience in education, here are some advice to help you with your experience. You must know that Public Education is quite different in a shantytown.

It's not about you!

The most essential thing to understand about learning: it's not about showing the other how amazing you are, they don't have to be like you, they don't need "you". They need someone interested in giving them tools and capable of managing their curiosity to achieve a master goal: being interested in something and truly learn about it.

Learning to Learn

You must know how to mark and find "key words", how to make a Concept Map and even how to do a perfect summary. That´s what most of teachers expect from a child nowadays, and of course, they don't really teach about that.
I came across many boys and girls that wasn't taught about learning techniques. When we realize that, the first milestone should be: how does this boy/girl learn things in his/her regular life; can that methodology be applied to study other things? Can I teach with a similar method? How can adapt myself in order to make the learning process easier?

Help the insight process

We all have different skills, strengths and weaknesses, and knowing them can help us make strongest steps. The simple fact of using something we are good at in our own learning process will make us believe in us, will grow our self esteem. In a child with learning issues, that's a big step in the long run.

Be enthusiastic

This will have a tremendous impact on how you feel and also on how others feel. Difficulties are easier to deal with when we have someone with us, and you can't imagine how positive and enthusiastic thinking make it better.

Photo by Aaron Burden / Unsplash