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SOME TIPS TO BUILD A SUCCESSFUL TEACHING CAREER There have been million myths and debates on how to be a successful teacher for ages and many people believe that if you play by the rules of teaching you can make a good teacher somehow by time. The books,the articles, about teaching,the faculties where teachers are grown up always give support to turn a candidate into a good teacher .But theories are not the same with the real life experiences.Reading or studying a lot before starting the teaching career is not like having some real life situations.Getting experienced takes time,and a teacher should be in the field. Teaching is the cultivation of human being.As a teacher ,one has to be patient ,one has to be giving and one needs to do the things step by step to be able to see the results of what is given or done at the end of the day.That is why learning never stops for the teachers.As soon as we start our teaching career,we are also starting our learning period to build a teaching career.How long I will be teaching?How many different schools I will work?How many students I will teach?When will I get retired?While these questions are turning in our heads from time to time,we also need to ask ourselves some deep questions,besides the physical ones.How many hearts and brains I will touch today?How many original crazy and right to the point ideas I will come up with? How will I enlighten the darkness if there is,with my knowledge?How will I help my students when they are scared? There are some notes I keep in mind as a 13 years-old teacher and I believe these tips help me to build my career finely.Here some tips of mine ; 1-Help Yourself: Remembering that we are the leader of the class and students are looking into our eyes and waiting for us,at the hard times we should believe in ourselves and push the teaching limits. A teacher should not expect too much from managers and parents to create self-confident classrooms whose students are eager to learn and share good and bad moments with us.Of course that doesn’t mean we can not ask for help from our colleagues but we had better not to cry on the microphone if we are not in the safe water.( this is more for the new teachers ) 2- Never stop learning : Although there are arguments going on about what makes a teacher successful is,teachers should not quit studying to their lessons –What type of students he/she had? Was the lesson satisfactory for the teacher and students? What can be done to make a weak lesson better? Was the lesson plan working nicely as it had been planned or not? So, answering these type of questions to evaluate or interrogate your teaching after the lessons might be the best homeworks to work on after the teaching day 3- Gain experience : Teachers should attend at least one or two teaching trainings in a year (online ,local or international if possible )to build a successful teaching career.Sometimes, a little thing we hear or see in these trainings can help us a lot later.Hearing from the native or experienced teacher trainers can give the trainees a big chance to test or explore themselves by asking the questions in their minds about hows and whats.. Sharing what we have learnt out of these trainings or applying the new things on our students are priceless.Also,to gain more experience, a teacher should not stuck in just one grade of teaching . Trying different levels can make a big difference too 4- Its not the workplace ;it is called'the school':Realising that we are growing kids with their parents , loving the teaching environment helps us a lot whilst we are on our path of teaching career .If we would like to do this during our lives , we had better call this lovely place as our second homes which is‘school‘ in the other name .Teachers say that they go to ‘’school’’not work. When we love what we do,nothing can stop us to be a successful teacher. 5- Test,critise(don’t kill)and reward yourself:Building a teaching career is a long way to go and there is no just one way to do it as our material is not a wood or stone.We should look for more all the time to be a better teacher.But we should also remember that it is our very right not to be a flawless one ,we are also human too (some students are getting surprised when they find out this) and we can make some mistakes,but when a teacher feels that there is something wrong going on,it is high time he/she accepted and found the reasons behind it.Then,making some searches about learning more, discovering our weaknesses ,improving our teaching skills,taking tests ,following the latest reports ,joining some social media teachers groups and talking to a teacher who is more experienced one are some ways to help us while building a career.And seeing the recovery,it is time to reward ourlseves. 6-Give up : Do we ever want one of our students to give up in the middle of the academic year? If the answer is no,the teacher should not give up,either.When we are facing with the difficulties or challenges,we need quick solutions not to quit. Every student learns differently and in our first years ,we are like a new-born baby most of the time.We feel we only get what we want if we scream or cry but instead we should take some time for ourselves and wait to get matured enough to be able to call ourselves a succesfull one in our career. Finally , a teacher should remember one popular saying by Friedrich Nietzsche,’’The thing does not kill you,makes you stronger’’. Our experiences,our faults are the ones that make us big and important and if we dont take it for granted.As getting older,we should say:'I have learnt and taught myself a lot while teaching the others'
