OP... you're too good!

I have been teaching part-time while in school and still teaching as I await deployment for service. I know I do my best to ensure my students get all they should. But this write up is opening my mind to a whole lot of things and I know I can do better than I'm doing right now. Thanks Op, keep up the good work, get well.

Curb the cubs
(Copa-ticha episode
As a copa-ticha, you may be worried about managing the unruly behaviours of students in the classroom. Making them sit-down, keep aside every other thing and pay attention to the lesson. Before you consider bulala or pankere (cane in Nigeria local languages), let me give you some tips that might help you in controlling students indiscipline.
To start with, I will like you to know that class management and maintaining discipline in students is a demanding task because adolescents do not like to stay under authority. As a teacher, it’s a thing you need to work on, hence be mindful of your authority, your instruction and your behaviour.
Work on your authority in the classroom, create the feelings that you are in control, make rules and set penalties for disobedience. Do not over-do this by setting so many rules instead adopt encompassing ones say “we shouldn’t use distracting objects in the class” instead of “1. Do not use your phone 2. Do not read novels 3. Do not play games”. You are in-charge but do not abuse your authority by looking for “scape goats” or inflicting corporal punishments, no child likes to be scolded in front of peers. Start correction by eye contacts or silent signals however if a child is too stubborn, try to have a personal discussion with him/her to know where the problem lies.
Establishing authority in class may be very cumbersome especially for first-timers and those whose stature students may consider not to command their respect. Don’t be scared though, when you do it right, you get it right! Be flexible and not rigid, be firm and fair in your address and judgment. Maintain dignity in your dressing and talk. Shun repeating same word or phrase over and over again, e.g. so…so…so. Make sure the students keep the class neat, because they won’t be organised in an untidy class.
As for your instruction i.e. teaching, make your lesson precise and easy to understand, make it interesting and engage the students. If the class becomes rough or rowdy, use humor to redirect students’ attention to the lesson. In addition, you should take note that classes get disordered when they are ill-prepared for.
Presenting yourself as friendly, welcoming, respectful and genuinely interested in your students is the best way to set the students for positive discipline. Your dressing matters a lot, do not put on “shouting styles and colours”. Respect class rules, do away with your mobile device, the calls and messages can wait! Get to know your students’ individual personalities, it goes a long way in building a behaviour influencing rapport. Build your love in the students’ heart, they will not like to offend you by being disobedient.
Subduing or eliminating all acts of indiscipline in students is not easy as stated earlier, but you have to start from somewhere, you will not only make a good teacher by doing that, you are also a step to becoming a good dad or mum. Smiles. Ta-ta!
Thank you!

https://siddiqoye./2015/12/20/curb-the-cubs-copa-ticha-episode-8/#more-104

xxgig:
I have been teaching part-time while in school and still teaching as I await deployment for service. I know I do my best to ensure my students get all they should. But this write up is opening my mind to a whole lot of things and I know I can do better than I'm doing right now. Thanks Op, keep up the good work, get well.

you are welcome, its my pleasure sir. i wish you good luck. i will also like to learn from your experience.

Sir, what do we do when students ask questions we don't have answers for?

tell dem wen next we meet...lol

Impact before you depart
(Copa-ticha episode 9)
At the end of the previous episode, I made an otherwise sarcastic expression saying “you are also a step to becoming a good dad or mum”. Yeah! Teaching is not all about the lesson content but teachers influence the lives of students directly or indirectly. The ward is the likeness of the guardian!
The day you become a teacher, you become a mentor also thus it’s left to you how and on what to groom your students. Your appearance, dressing and manner of speech are usual centres of attraction, from there students start to follow or evade your ideas. If students like your personality, they start to quotes, make reference to your life and some will like to be like you especially when you studied their dream course or graduated from their desired institution. That I experienced during my teaching practice, some students would spend their free periods with me, just to know more about their dream varsity, where I was studying.
In short, as a teacher, whether a professional or a “copa-ticha”, you are a counsellor. Students will meet you to discuss things, seek advice, demand for extra lessons and if they do not meet you, you will have cause to rapport with them, especially when you are serving in a school where the teachers are not from your age group, you see your students as your companions. It is not rare to see the students meeting a graduate for career guidance too, therefore you need to “package” yourself and do not sound confuse because you were forced to study your course or did not feel fulfilled after graduation.
In the course of relating with students, it is essential you avoid any form of abuse. Always stand to be respected, don’t be the type that will visit the bar with students or engage in illicit relationship with the innocent teens, though that has been a yearly admonition to NYSC corps members. To cut it short, at present, we have a lot of problems in the moral upbringing of the young generation, we need to rectify things and not compound.
Admonish your students on being good and socially upright, this is nowhere equal to making the class a worship place. Leave remarkable, emotional and intellectual impact on those youngsters, Help them along their path to becoming thoughtful, engaged and self-aware citizens.
With this, I hope you will attest that learning to be a good teacher is not just a step to, but it is as fine as learning to become a good dad or mum, for the fact being that teachers outshine parents most times in child upbringing. Smirk... I am not cajoling you to join us…just be a good “copa-ticha”. Meet you in the next and last episode!!!
Thank you all the way!!!
https://siddiqoye./2015/12/23/impact-before-you-depart-copa-ticha-episode-9/

Uniquelyunique1:
Sir, what do we do when students ask questions we don't have answers for?

firstly, let me advice that you avoid such situation as much as you can by preparing very well for the lesson. however, when such come up, like it is commonly concieved by many, don't just say "i am giving you as an assignment", start by engaging other studemts, you will request that someone should answer the question but if there is no one to answer, you can tell them to research on it but do not make your ignorance known in class, some students may ridcule your lessons because of that. good luck!
In addition, you should know that students use that method to set a teacher up at times.

Assess and Appraise!
(Copa-ticha episode 10)
Going through the previous episodes, you will realize we touched how to start, needed skills, styles and manners as well as other essentials in the act of teaching. Here, we will be discussing a concept commonly mistaken for the end of teaching processes. In fact it is a director to the “why and how” of the whole process. It is EVALUATION. Far from ordinary testing, evaluation is a routine process in teaching, ranging from your questions after each lesson to working on students’ scores in examination.
Main reason for evaluation is in twofold; judging the instruction i.e. knowing whether or not you have perfectly delivered and secondly is measurement of learning outcome i.e. making judgement on how well the students have learnt. This is to say evaluation is not solely about the students but the teacher as well. Hence, below are basic points you will need to know;
Asking questions at the end of each lesson is very important, it makes you know whether or not students got the lesson right and that they have not confused similar ideas. Always do this….
Continuous assessments.
Aside testing in the classroom, try to issue homework, it provides freedom and opportunity to research…and copy too, so check that. Set out C.A questions carefully and correspond them with behavioral objectives. Mark carefully as well.
Examination
Revise the term work with your students before they go on for examination and make yourself available for questions and clarifications. It is worthwhile to give a piece of advice too. Let them know that the examination may not reflect their values and abilities, however encourage them to study well. Do not make it seem like they are in for a battle, make them know nothing would be asked except that which was taught and revised. Try these and see your students come out in flying colors.
Aftermath of evaluation
In the process of evaluating students’ performance you may realize some flaws in your instructional methods, especially when a large percentage fails, in such case you need to work on your techniques. In some cases, you will realize a great misconception took place, you should simply clarify that. You will get to know about individual students’ problem too, but note that failure is not a student’s fault when you leave out essential requirements in teaching. Do not criticize or compare students, appreciate those who performed well and cheer up those who did not do quite well and know! Not every kid is an “A” student.
Evaluation as you can see, is about feedback….”copa-ticha series” needs to be evaluated also…evaluate it!
Thank you!
https://siddiqoye./2015/12/27/assess-and-appraise-copa-ticha-episode-10/#more-117

I guess this is the last.... thank you! it's been good, only the slow updates.

bife:
I guess this is the last.... thank you!
it's been good, only the slow updates.

the last in the series but with a plus and here it goes

This piece is a bonus in addition to the copa-ticha episode 1-10. It is dubbed to reflect that it contains some kinds of “over sabi” though they can go a long way in helping you during and even after service year. Some may even give birth to your personal CDS. I have highlighted and briefed some of this tips under the character they fit into. Read and benefit…

THE GOOD CORPER

Being good is a virtue that so many people lack, but virtually everyone can be good or pretend to be. Humility, punctuality and diligence at work are needed here. Let the management see you as an upright person, mannered and righteous. Your co-teachers may not be degree holders, mind the way you address them.

INNOVATIVE CORPER

As a copa-ticha you have to display your skills in the school, let them know that you actually studied that prestigious course for 4, 5 or 6 years. It may not be something in your discipline but something good and nice will make the school write your name in gold. Say you studied an environmental related course, you can choose to initiate planting of flowers around the school premises, that’s not stressful…your students will always be there for you. They naturally like wahala!

CORPER ICT

This is not for those graduates that cannot use MS word, no insult intended. Play this card by either encouraging or helping your school to be ICT compliant though it is a “no go area” in some schools. Well, you can help to create an email, build a website and recommend e-testing if they have a computer room. Let them know that their students will not get admitted into higher institution in the country without passing CBT UME and being a regular user is an edge over others. In case you need info on that, contact me and I will gladly help. In addition, you may offer to teach some students how to use of common computer software but be smart enough not to be seen as the computer teacher’s rival.

SOCIAL CORPER

Many people perceive being social to be limited to organizing dance shows, No! I am not talking about that, I want to focus on clubs and societies. If your school have such in place, join hands with the coordinators or otherwise you may propose an introduction. The most popular and quite important club in a school is the press. Other popular ones are debate club, environmental, HIV and the likes. If you don’t have an idea on how to introduce and coordinate one, I can help you with an outline but not here…no space! You may not know, club activities build students’ interactive and leadership skills. #reminiscence

As a plus you may assist or volunteer to be part of the end of session programme too. “All nah social”.

SMART CORPER

Of course the students will be feeling your swags knowing you a graduate, a way to add more to the swags is by walking into their classrooms during free period to create some intellectual rapport. Talk to them about technology, history, mathematical facts or throw some riddle. How about using this line: “someone should tell us a sentence that contains the 26 letters of English alphabet for #500 cash”. Don’t be scared majority of secondary school students won’t get it right, your money is save and ………”if dem chop your money” diaris God!

If you don’t know the answer to that, here it is: “a quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dogs”.

SMART CLASS

You are smart, you are ICT enabled, you are social, and you serve in a school where many students have smartphones, smarten up your class too by creating an online chat group for class discussions, read that well….CLASS DISSCUSSIONS.

Doing these is going the extra mile in your “service and humility”…do you agree?

This is a bonus, it shouldn’t be much but it is already, before I say my thank you, let me appreciate you for reading through. Copa-Ticha series is my first successful edu-project after Bachelor’s degree, your attention boosted my morale. I am delighted and can’t express how happy I am while writing these last lines.

Thank You!

Siddiq I. Oyelami B.A. (ED.) Islamic Studies.

(Author)

I wrote this as an advocate for quality teachers’ education, thus I enjoin you all to join up in this campaign.

i thank all nairaland corps members who have been viewing this, especially those whose comment served as fount of motivation. i wish you all the best in your service to the nation.
i also appeal to the moderators( CrazyMan, Ogbeche77, yokiti) and the founder of Nairaland, seun to see to this thread, i think it needs a wider audience.
Thank you

Congratulations on the completion

Wow, Nice one

Emperorsversion.

Lemme know when u get it, so i delete, b4 small small boys go cum begin worry am

whiteMandingo:
Emperorsversion.

Lemme know when u get it, so i delete, b4 small small boys go cum begin worry am

gotten bro. Thanks

emperorsversion:


gotten bro. Thanks

Ok cool, do update the house how it turns out.
She sounded even cooler than Idara

whiteMandingo:

Ok cool, do update the house how it turns out. She sounded even cooler than Idara

sure bro... I will update the house