Dear Friend,
They started paying teachers 300k to 400k monthly salary in 2013/2014 and bankers who were privy to the information began to drop applications to teach. This was at a time government was struggling to pay 30k minimum wage. Someone who recognized God’s blessing decided to reward education with this initiative where he gave 50% of the students’ population full scholarship.
The teacher recruitment process was outsourced and the interviewers were good. There was a question that I found interesting. “Tell us about your teaching and learning philosophy”.
I remembered I did something similar during the Post Graduate Programme. The Philosophy of Education courses. But, how could I have gotten ‘A’ grade then and having difficulty aligning my thoughts in this crucial interview. We sometimes do not earn what we desire, we earn what we deserve. I figured out that there was gap between how we were taught even at higher institutions and what it means to learn. I felt learning was in categories: We were substantially exposed to Shallow but not Deep learning.
It was clearer to me in 2015 when I found out the answer to the learning gap. My teachers or lecturers had focused on content and ignored context. They focused on teaching and learning of different education philosophers as well as assessed us on how we could recall these facts. There was no opportunity to contextualize and personalise the philosophy. Probably if I was told to take some learning profile and personality tests and use the results to speak to the different theories and propositions of the different philosophers, I would have had experiential data to build my personal learning philosophy.
So, what happened in 2015? The British Council began to sponsor teachers in the acquisition of critical thinking and problem solving skills in addition to practical approaches to embedding the skills in teaching and learning delivery. It was game changer. The approaches were so simplified in ways that teacher would create context for learning and learners’ contribution and engagement would generate content. Being a consultant to this international organisation with presence in over 100 countries is phenomenal.
The interview questions and environment for higher earning is different from the context where we work so hard to earn but little. Why work hard for what is not working, we can give ourselves away to learning what matters.
Moving forward, we had a replay in 2018 in South Africa. A prestigious Leadership Academy had me for an interview. A lot have changed in terms of professional capacity, growth and exposure. This time, the question was re-framed: “Tell us how we learn”. Of course, it was dramatic. The response was justified with relevant data and anecdote. Do not forget the native American proverb that, ‘he who tells the story rules the universe’.
Doing well in teaching profession is not necessarily about the years of experience as years of experience does not automatically qualify anyone for expertise. We only grow to being an expert through intentionality and deliberate practice.
The opportunities are even more now than in 2013/2014 but you do not have to figure it out alone because it might cost you time, believe me, time is the stuff that life is made of, you would not want to waste it. I am an advocate of mentorship and founded the Self-Actualization Mentoring (SAM) Academy to close the earning gap.
If you have made up your mind to build a career in a profession that was once ignored, turn the needle in your favour by seeking for mentorship. The genius, Sir Isaac Newton was so humble when he wrote in his 1675 letter that, “I was not better than my contemporaries. If I have seen further, it is by standing on the shoulders of giants”.
You are just an email away by expressing your interest to admin@selfactualizationacademy.net.
You will succeed!
Jamiu T. Aliyu
Founder, Self-Actualization Mentoring Academy
U.S. Space and Rocket Academy Ambassador
European Council for Nuclear Research Ambassador
Global Scholar Ambassador @ African Leadership Academy South Africa
Core Skills Global Trainer and Education Consultant
Edubrainics Online Lecturer
