| StarTeaching Feature Writer | |
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Munir
Moosa Sewani is one of the most famous, prominent and creative
names in the field of Education in the past 8 years. He is a
Master Trainer In Special Education, Post Graduate Teacher
Educator, and a Teacher. He is a Freelance Writer and
Photographer, in addition to his role as a featured writer for
StarTeaching's newsletter over the past year. He is an
author of the famous self-published storybook for children
titled, "The MORAL STORIES FOR CHILDREN," and has
also written a Biology course book for Secondary Classes. He has
written more than 30 articles internationally on many
websites and numerous newsletters dealing with social, health,
educational, and cultural issues, which are internationally
recognized and published in most of the famous world- wide
websites, magazines and newspapers. He
is also a social worker, private tutor, career counselor,
musician, lyrics writer and has many multi- dimensional talents. His future plan is to write dozens of informative books and articles and to work in the education field and the media, in order to develop the sense of understanding many dimensions of life through his creativity. You can contact Munir Moosa Sewani at: munirmoosa@yahoo.com |
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| Past Articles from Munir Moosa Sewani: Duties
of a Responsible Teacher Voice of Exceptional People (part
1) Reflections on Teaching Practice
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DUTIES
OF A RESPONSIBLE TEACHER By:
Munir Moosa Sewani |
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Teachers are the leaders of every nation. They are the role model of their students. Their responsibilities towards their profession are increasing day by day, as students are highly concerned about what is taught to them by their teachers. Teachers are the only one, who molds the future of their students by imparting quality education. Entering in the field of teaching is not a cup of tea for every one. Only those can survive in this profession, who are responsible and understands their duties and performs it effectively. Teachers are no doubt willing to enhance their teaching skills all the time, but they have some responsibilities towards this profession too. Being professional, every individual teacher should perform their duties with loyalty and sincerity. Few of the responsibilities being a teacher, which I have learnt in my teaching experience is given below: · They should help in developing the school curriculum. · A teacher should assess, record and report on the work of pupils on weekly/montly basis. · It’s the responsibility of a teacher to have an interactive discussion with every student family in order to know child psychology properly. · A teacher should prepare pupils for examinations and grade them wisely. · A teacher should be punctual in school. · A teacher should provide advice and guidance to pupils on issues related to their education. · A teacher should maintain class diary and lesson plan folder. · A teacher should convey all the issues related to their students with the heads. · A teacher should allocate activity budget effectively. · A teacher should check ups and down in the progress of their students time to time. · They should Promote and safeguard the health, welfare and safety of pupils. · They should take continuous training for their professional development. · They should always be ready to face liabilities without any hesitation as they are accountable to their heads, which is the part of teaching profession. · A teacher should contribute towards good order and the wider needs of the school. · A teacher is responsible for the leadership, good management and strategic direction of colleagues. · A responsible teacher should try to teacher their children according to their level of understanding. · An effective teacher should communicate properly with their staff members and students. · A responsible teacher should give extra time to their teaching. If any student needs help then he/she should try to help their student individually after school hours. · A responsible teacher designs extra curricular activities, which suits the student ideas and explore student’s creativity. · A responsible teacher should practice what they preach. · Teachers have a responsibility to work co-operatively with colleagues and others to pursue the overall objectives of the service. · A teacher should give additional time for the preparation of their lesson plans and must be pre-planned a day before teaching it to students. · A teacher should attend every parents meeting’s and should first negotiate the positive and then some negative aspects of the student, without any concealment. · They should forward and share their pre-planning materials with the other class teacher without any hesitation. · A teacher should use their professional judgment in relation to the prioritization of tasks. · Teachers have a right and a responsibility to contribute to the development of a quality service. They have a professional commitment to develop their skills and expertise in classroom practice and other related matters through an agreed program of continuing professional development. · A teacher should document and maintains pupil’s disciplinary records as well. · A teacher should not shift their job until student’s final term examination ends. Last
but not the least, “All the teachers should take this noble profession seriously, because the rein of future is in their hands. They are the one who prepares leaders for the future generation to raise our country head internationally.”
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The Importance of Career Planning By Munir Moosa Sewani |
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A career refers to a profession, which we want to adopt for earning our livelihood, and planning means the proper flow to make proper decisions. Pre-planning in our life plays a very important role in every aspect of life, to work in a proper flow, and pre-planning for our career, which we want to pursue in our future after acquiring certain level of education or a degree is also very necessary in today's competitive world. According to the Thorndike dictionary, "A goal that you desire to achieve in a selected field or occupation with a well-thought out plan, to get you there is called Career Planning." The world is now moving very fast, and the time has come when this meritocratic society will accept only those having the right qualifications and right skills. The old days are gone when just a degree would help an individual to attain a high profile job by giving a bribe or using some other means. Now it's high time, when the transparency in job recruitment has taken place. Challenges and competition are the part of today's society, and therefore, Career Planning is the only task, which can guide us to do what we want to do in our life, rather than just aimlessly changing jobs all the time in future. We have seen many Pakistanis, who after completing Intermediate Education, don't know where to go, what to do and we have also seen graduates, who aimlessly move through their education without any specialization. As a result, their earnings are just in 6-8 figures. Career Planning is one of the broader aspects of learning in our existence. We all have some intentions and we all think to have stability in our future lives, and for that purpose, CAREER PLANNING serves as a key to success. Career Planning forces a person to think suitably about their positive and negative aspects as well as their interests, and their creativity becomes possible by properly analyzing ourselves. Career Planning basically starts when a person finishes Secondary/ Higher Secondary level of education. After that level, a person could opt for that educational degree, which would help them out to have a good job opportunity according to their skills at the right time. Career Planning helps us to design and formulate our future smoothly. For example, if a person wants to be a banker, then he or she would choose to go for ACCA or CA or complete a MBA in finance after completing Intermediate Education in commerce and graduating with a degree in commerce/ business administration.. Otherwise, he/ she would go for CAT course or Masters in Commerce or even up to doctorate level. This pre-planning would be effective and would give him/her benefits for achieving educational targets effectively. It also helps us to evaluate our own personality, which helps us to know that which kind of job would suit us according to our need and capabilities. In short, Career Planning is like mapping our future. Without proper planning, no one could think of getting a desired job in future. Think about what we want to do and then find out more about the kind of training, education, and skills we will need to achieve our career goal; this is the core objective of career planning. It helps us to know the nature of the jobs that interest us, such as educational requirements, salary, working conditions, fringe benefits, promotion chances, future prospectus, and it helps us focusing in the right dimension. Career planning directs us, motivates us, and helps us to accomplish what we want. A career goal is a specific vision such as an architect or a teacher or a career goal can be a particular field which we want to work in, such as Media, Education, Medicine, Engineering etc. For those who will think about their future and career after completing their education without any long term desired goals are the ones whose attempts might end in smoke. There are some cases and situations which require a person to pre-plan in advance, such as family, family business status, lack of interest in studies or traditional job, low motivation, low financial status, etc, or some past educational traumas which caused a person to plan at a later time. Career planning is a lifetime process; we are always learning and growing, and as we do, our interests and needs also change. Career planning is not just making plans to obtain our careers, but it also helps us to make many adjustments there will be along the ways we learn throughout our lives. Those who have successful careers like educators, business owners, managers, pilots, architects, bankers, doctors, etc. are the ones, who have made their ways through with proper guidance. No doubt, our parents have some wishes and expectations from us, but we have our own too. Therefore, we should also consider others' opinions. For that we could take guidance from an educational counselor to get better guidance towards new dimensional fields as well. Teachers, professionals, career guidance websites, as well as head educational consultants can also guide us to have a better approach for our future. We must have the freedom of speaking and the freedom of choosing our careers as we have to lead our lives which interest us. We must try to have an open mind in order to choose the right career at the right time. According to one renowned professor, "Few of us like to opt for those degree courses, which their family or friends have advised them to adopt and this inappropriate knowledge trapped them into a great mistake. In this way, they are unable to get good job opportunities according to their interests. Only Proper Career Guidance would help an individual to be on the right path beforehand. Few of us try to seek the right path and really take guidance from our family or our teachers to tell them what is good for them, which career is in demand and which career suits their interest." The future is un-predictable; however, we could still make our place in this meritocratic world by making career goals and plans in advance for getting better opportunities in today's pluralistic and globalize world. We must pre-plan our goals under the supervision of professionals in a conscious state of mind, so that we could strategically maintain our goals and follow it towards the path of a successful future.
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EFFECTIVE INTERVIEW SKILLS BY: MUNIR MOOSA SEWANI |
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Life is full of challenges. We meet many confrontations in our daily life. When we are at the stage of entering school/college/university, we face many hard challenges and learn many lessons of practical life through them. After acquiring matric/inter/graduation/post graduation, students usually move towards their specialization or adopt a profession of their choices, according to their own interest, keeping in view the market demand. Talents and skills are the only tools which could lead an individual towards the door of success in this challenging time. To qualify for a professional degree or a job, one should have a strong past educational background along with integrated multi-dimensional skills. It’s of no use acquiring a higher degree without building character, confidence, and expressive personality. To meet the challenges of professional life, one has to be familiar with many skills to grab the attention of an interviewer, out of which interview skills are the basic necessities to meet up the future challenges with success. Whether you are applying for a job or want to qualify an entrance examination for a professional degree, you should have to be prepared in advance for an interview. It’s the only way through which you can gain the trust of an interviewer. An interviewer always attempts to decide why they should select you. What are the qualities that you have and others do not have? How can you be a benefit to their organization? If you can show your trust, your confidence, your commitment, and appropriate skills, then you could win a successful future. The interview is a form of oral communication. It’s one to one, or one to group interaction, where an applicant proves himself or herself as a unique person to be the part of an organization. Remember that the interview is always pre-planned and structured. It’s a formal presentation between an interviewer and an interviewee. Only those pass it with flying colors who are original and show their interest with confidence and who present themselves as appealing. There are many types of interviews, like an information gathering interview, an appraisal interview, an exit interview, a hiring interview, a college/ university interview, a persuasive interview, a counseling interview and of course many more. In this article, we are going to learn about the college/ university entrance and hiring interview. The Hiring/Entrance Interview
is one of the best known and the most widely experienced type of
interview where a Human Resource Manager/ Educational Expertise takes
an interviewer. To reduce your chances being rejected, here are some basic professional skills, which will lead you towards the path of success in your interview.
PRACTICE YOUR INTERVIEW SKILLS. CHIN UP AND GEAR UP FOR
YOUR NEXT INTERVIEW J!
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