What are Teaching and Learning? Journey

     There once was a traveler who desired to make a transcontinental journey in only thirty days because she wanted to learn about various cultures, diverse peoples, and different cities in countries other than her own. She wanted to visit interesting places within each city and country she wanted to visit. She thought the best place to start was to find a good travel agent who provides the right resources and one or many excellent travel guide (s) in each course. The travel guides helped her prepare her itinerary for this thirty-day trip, day by day. The guides gave her the necessary information about how to plan her trip in the most enjoyable way. The guides gave her maps, addresses of places she wanted to visit, train/bus/plane schedules, weather information about each place she will visit, gave her brochures about interesting places she might not have known about and calculated all the costs for this extensive trip. The guides helped her plan the route she will take that would make the most sense. The guides gave her the names and contact information of her colleagues in the countries she will visit so she can contact them in case she needs help along her voyage. The guides then asked her to write down what she wanted to accomplish on this trip. Where did she want to visit or learn more about? The guides reviewed and helped her plan each place she would visit, how she would get there locally and what hours they are open. They worked together plans for each day locally and what hours they were open. The guides provided her with detailed logistics including budget, things to do, rules, and timelines.

    As the traveler began to take her journey with other travelers, the guides prepared for this trip and lead these travelers with great services including timely tips of advice, right vehicles and lodgings, and some additional fun events. The traveler then embarked on the trip and found out many things that the agent did not tell her about and she was excited by this. This traveler, with other travelers, found out how much she was grown and how much she was appreciative to travel agency, guides, and other co-travelers because of her growth. After her trip, she was ready for another journey of her life in confidence and with many capacities developed during her trip as a skillful manager of her uncertain future. 

    Learning and teaching are very much like this analogical journey. Each student embarks on a voyage with preconceived expectations of where they believe the class and the teacher will take them, but then the teacher introduces them some information about the subject that can take them into completely unknown territory. This unknown territory is where learning takes place. In this metaphor, a tourist agency is an educational system that provides the best quality of travels (education) for the customers (students). A tourist is a student who wants to learn and experience many things through travel(education) with the help of a tourist agency. For her to get the best out of her trip (learning), she has to set the goal, to follow the direction of tour guide, to research her trip, and to let her be open-minded to new information during her trip.  A teacher is a tour guide for her students (travelers) to take them safe and fun journeys. She has to help her students to get their goals achieved by providing them with the right resources, information, directions, as well as great opportunities for them to learn and to explore. As her students take her journey by her guide, she has to guide them to have the right directions so that they will not lose in their trips. She has to give proper assignments for them to achieve their adventures and to develop their creativity of exploration as individuals and as a group in their journeys. During the designated time, each day she has to evaluate the achievements of their adventure so that they had a better quality of experiences in learning new information and culture. As a tour guide, a teacher should be responsible for the safe learning processes of students. Teaching and guiding should be very productive, creative, fun, directive, and resourceful. The education system has to provide both teachers and students with all resources for students to achieve their learning outcome safest and effective ways as the excellent travel agency does. Seeing students excel when faced with these challenges guided by the teacher is what makes teaching exciting for me, watching students grow in the classroom helps me know that I am doing my job as the best 'travel guide' for them.