Education has been an important part of my life as a
child, as a student and as a Professor. For me, the experience of learning new
things and of imparting knowledge to others carries with special sense of
excitement and gratification. I believe that I have an intuitive sense for
education, and certainly I have had a lot of experience at it.
My professional life revolves around teaching and
research. I was once asked which one I would give up if I had to choose between
them. I hope never to have to make that choice because the two are
complementary and each is exciting and fun. However, if forced, I think I would
choose teaching over research. I particularly enjoy the thrill of a successful
classroom performance and of working closely with students. I am also awed by
the enormous leverage and responsibility that teaching provides in terms of
propagating one's knowledge, standards, and ideals. (Because
one's knowledge is limited to the understanding of the others.) Many of
my former students are now teachers. Teaching, like parenting influences an
endless succession of generations.
There are obviously many facets to learning and to
our roles as educators. An important part of learning involves a straightforward
absorption of basic facts and skills. Like learning arithmetic (memorizing
multiplication tables etc) and history ( dates,
events, places etc). At another level, however, there is a need to develop
judgment, insight and intuition to use these skills and facts appropriately and
creatively.
I am a great believer in importance of the teacher's
role as mentor. As teachers, we are, in effect, intellectual parents. There are
many styles of mentoring that are appropriate and effective, just as there are
many styles of parenting. What is most important is that the style be
comfortable and natural for both student and teacher. It is also often the case
with students that there are times of role reversal in
which they are the teacher and I am the student. I believe that this role
reversal is as important to me as it is to them. Beyond this simple role
reversal, all of us are and should always be students as well as teachers.
With regard to classroom interaction, again there are
many styles that are appropriate and effective. I personally try to be highly
interactive in my lectures, even with large classes. Interestingly, when I am a
"Student" in a class in which the teacher is highly interactive and looks for
participation from class, I tend to be nervous and to feel intimidated when
asked to respond on material that I am just learning. However, I also find
myself paying especially close attention to the lecturer, so that if I am called
on, I have at least a reasonable chance of having a meaningful response. And,
also, I encourage my students to ask questions freely, because I believe that
there are no stupid questions but there could be misguided answers.
As I have tried to stress, I view my role as teacher
to involve not only imparting skills in a specific area but also developing
students in a broader sense. Of particular importance is the development of
creativity, insight, and a positive, confident self-image. Confidence and
self-esteem are essential since creative processes inevitably involve
disappointment and failure, set off, one hopes, by occasional successes. In
guiding students through their research projects, I consider it important to
push them to their creative limits and to instill in them the self-confidence
to carry out creative research on their own. As we all know, in order to fly,
it is important to believe that you can.
I was particularly fortunate to have had a number of
excellent teachers who had significant impact on me personally. They showed me
by example the importance of exceptional standards, friendship and informality,
inspiring teaching. I hope that in a similar way I can convey these values to
my students. I particularly look forward to many years of being a friend and
teacher to my students and to being their student as well.
Dr. Levent ERTAUL