Teaching is an art (an experience)

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Hi, the educators!

Perhaps we think that teaching is a simple activity. But the reality is not! Teaching is an activity that requires a lot of things.

What is teaching? There are several views about the definition of teaching. Teaching is the process of attending to people’s needs, experiences and feelings, and making specific interventions to help them learn particular things. Another opinion said, teaching is the concerted sharing of knowledge and experience, which is usually organized within a discipline and, more generally, the provision of stimulus to the psychological and intellectual growth of a person by another person or artifact.

In my experience, teaching in front of the class should have certain skills and competencies. A teacher must have these competencies, because the learning process does not happen in a short time. Competencies I mean are pedagogic competence, personality competence, social competence, and professional competence.

A teacher must have the art of communicating in front of the class (pedagogic competence). When teachers teach, every word that comes out of their mouths is motivating words, facilitating students' understanding of the explanations of a material, words containing advice and virtues, and interacting with students so that a responsive learning process . Not everyone is able to communicate well, but a teacher must be able to do it.

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In addition, teachers should also have art in classroom management. A teacher who is smart academically, but not able to manage the class, then the learning process will be monotonous. We know, our students come from different backgrounds. The art of managing classes can be done in many ways. For example classifying student seats in the classroom or how we manage conflicts that occur in the classroom. I know, there are various problems that must be faced by a teacher in their classroom. Well, this is where the art of classroom management is needed.

There are many analogies of education. As we know about the concept of education according to the Ancient Greek Philosopher, Socrates. He likens education (including teachers and students) like a midwife who helps the mother to give birth to a baby. The midwife only helps,the baby was born by the mother. The midwife is the teacher herself, the mother is the one who is educated, while the born baby is knowledge. So in the students themselves there is already knowledge, which in the language of philosophy is intended that the child is not still empty with knowledge. In the child there is knowledge, which needs help to be issued, directed, and developed.[]

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