Passion For Teaching

"A good teacher can inspire hope; ignite the imagination, and instill a love of learning." 

Brad Henry

When I was younger I dreamed of being many things and being a teacher was among my very long list of future careers. When we are young we dream unlimitedly and that is great because it leaves us open to all possibilities. I was so passionate about teaching that I would take a book with me to the bathroom and pretend that I was teaching a class. I would always pretend my students were children. The lesson would change. Sometimes I would read to my imaginary students and explain the story to them, the meanings within the story and I would always send them away with the moral of the story or a lesson that we learned from the story. Other times I would make up a story and ask them a question about it and other times it would just be an interactive class. It really sounds weird as I am typing this, so I will probably sound weird when you read it. 

Anyways, my classrooms progressed from the bathroom to the bedroom. I would use a clipboard as my chalkboard and I would teach my imaginary kids some lessons. I eventually started buying chalkboards. I currently own 4 small writing boards 🙈. By the time I was in high school, being a teacher did not seem like an interesting career anymore and for some reason, I believed I didn’t like kids. Maybe I was just trying to justify the fact that I didn’t want to have children of my own. So I decided that I was going to become a journalist. I would be talking as much and I would be dealing with older people. And so I applied to study communication. 

In 2014, during my gap year, I applied for a tutoring job with Brightsparkz Tutors and I got the job. When I first started I had no clue how to do it and lesson planning was tedious. Once I got the hang of it I started having fun and my passion for teaching was reignited. I was so passionate I would invest in making sure that the children understood the work, making sure they achieved their goals and they got all the support they needed from me. The more I tutored the more passionate I became but it never occurred to me to change my degree. I put a lot of time preparing for lessons and making sure that each lesson was tailored for each student. Taking into account their study methods, how they learned best and how simple they needed the work to be in order for them to understand. At the end of the 2014 school year, I quit tutoring for Brightsparks because I was moving to Somerset West, Western Cape. I wouldn’t have a car there and didn’t know how to get around, so I didn’t think it would be feasible for me to continue tutoring. 

When I was in my second year, the English teacher asked me to tutor the first-year English class. So I did that. It was really difficult because for many of the students English as a second language, other students really couldn’t speak it well so they needed a lot of help. At the same time though it was gratifying to help people understand something they struggled with. Besides helping the students I would occasionally teach the class when the lecturer had a lot of work to do and I would mark some papers as well. I honestly enjoyed all the admin and the work. That year I decided that I wanted to become a lecturer or teacher of some sort. 

After graduation, I moved back to Pretoria to do my honors (post-graduate degree) and since I had a lot of time in my hands I decided to apply to tutor for Brightsparkz, I got the job. Initially, I just wanted to tutor English and all the other subjects that had nothing to do with maths. One day I was asked to tutor Grade 7 maths and I really wasn’t sure that I could do it. The curriculum the students are doing now is different from the curriculum when I was in school. Some of the things they do in primary school I only did in high school. Anyways I took the job and I had to put in the hours, I needed to make sure I knew what was going on so that I could help this student. In the process of tutoring math, I discovered that I actually enjoy it. I was able to help the student. Due to that, I started getting more math students. 

The thing I discovered that really helps my students when I am teaching them maths is to give them tips or steps on how to do things, that way they learn the steps and are able to reach the correct answer and understand how they got to the answer. The other thing I learned from this tutoring journey is that students love guessing, I am not sure if they are not being taught to calculate, but I haven’t had a single student who didn’t guess an answer before calculating it. So I always tell my students “I hate it when you guess!”. They may guess one or two things right but if they do not know how to get it right they may not get all the other sums right by guessing. The most shocking thing I found was that children are no longer required to know their times' table of by hearts (that actually broke my heart). Tutoring helped me to identify some gaps in the education system which are quite shocking for me.

When I am tutoring I like to incorporate both fun and challenging activities for the students. Most of these children are between the ages of 10 and 13. So their attention span is limited and they have imprinted in their minds that maths is difficult and boring. In the attempt to help them learn I try to show them that maths can be fun. My one student actually said to me “You make maths really easy. I never knew I could have this much fun doing maths.” That is the beauty of teaching.  I also discovered that when you are teaching or tutoring you are more than just a tutor, you actually become a mentor to your students. I have a student that often says to me “You are too smart, you will never make mistakes.” I usually race with him when he is doing his sums. I don’t know everything and I can make mistakes and I make my students aware of that. When I make mistakes or I am uncertain of something I tell them. This shows them that they are allowed to make mistakes.

I have also worked with two adult students and one high school student. Early this years I was teaching conversational English to an Afrikaans speaking lady. She wanted to gain confidence and correct her grammatical mistakes. I had a lot of fun and really enjoyed seeing her improve. Then I helped a french speaking matriculant prepare for her English NBTs. That was a whole different experience. There isn’t a lot of material out there to help prepare for the NBTs so most of the material I had to create myself. A few months ago I started tutoring a university student. She needed help with Media studies and Intercultural communication. That has really been fun. I enjoy seeing the smile on people’s faces when they understand something. 

In July one of my grade seven students sent me a message crying of joy because her maths mark had gone up by 21%. A few weeks ago one of the parents of my grade 5 students was really grateful because his math term mark had improved compared to the previous term. The grade 12 student passed her NBTs. Some parents say “The year is coming to an end and we are looking forward to working with you next year!” Stories like this make me happy and really glad that I could make a difference in the academic lives of students. 

I would really love to continue tutoring or teaching and just help people improve their academics and reach their academic goals. I am Erica Rossana Domingos Mateus and I am a teacher at heart… It was teacher appreciation day on October 5th, I hope you showed your teacher some love. I think it should be teacher appreciation month. I thank my students for all the love and appreciation they show me constantly.