"Now Lets go forth and teach!"

As a PGCE student- a teacher in becoming, I'm learning new things everyday and I often find myself wondering how on earth I will be able to master all these teaching strategies and techniques, in order to be an effective teacher and teach the "whole child" (academic, personal and social). While planning my first FishBowl lesson, I realised that I need not to worry too much, I just focused on being myself and knowing my subject content. I approached the learners in the most natural manner possible and my lesson went great! Learners are human and should be treated as human beings. Looking back at my own high school teachers, the teachers that made a lasting impact to me are those teachers that treated me as an individual and showed that they really care about me and not just my academic performance. The health and wellbeing of students is increasingly being attributed to school conditions, school relationships, means of fulfilment, and health status (Konu et.al, 2002).

Foley discusses in detail that  pedagogy is only effective if it incorporates Pastoral Care and Student Wellbeing, Effective teaching practices and school environment and Creating Home and School Relationships that enhance the Classroom Climate. Pastoral care is not merely a complementary practice, it is policy and practices fully integrated throughout the teaching and learning and structural organisation of a school to effectively meet the personal , social and academic needs of the learners and staff. Pastoral care is the "oil of learning", its not the destination but the nourishment for the learning journey (Mann, 2006). Emotions can facilitate or impede children's academic engagement, work ethic, commitment and ultimately their school success. Relationships and emotional processes affect how and why we learn. Eisenberg makes a bold statement when he says "Effective mastery of social and emotional competencies is associated with greater wellbeing and better school performance." (Eisenberg, 2006) Therefore teachers should be available and accessible, create an environment of open communication, provide solid foundation skills to the learners and show empathy, understand towards the learners and promote pro-social bonding by acknowledging the learners and remembering their birthdays, family events or simply by allowing their personalities to  shine. 

Abby Wills clearly demonstrated this in the story that she shared in her blog titled "Applying Mindfulness to Mundane Classroom Tasks." Without policing her learner's behaviour, she guided them towards the right way of doing things and allowed them to come their own findings. By incorporating consistency, communication and structure, the key elements of effective teaching practice can increase academic outcomes.

Just as we are not perfect, our learners are also not perfect and if we acknowledge this and work together, we will reach our goals. Even if we don't, at least we will not be where we started. "Now lets go forth and teach!"