1. The Transformational Pedagogy Model

THE TRANSFORMATIONAL PEDAGOGY MODEL

Why do I want to teach?

I really want to teach because teaching is the best job in the world. I want to teach because I want to inspire my students. I do want them to feel that they are very special, and have many abilities. I want them to feel that I really believe in them and make them believe in themselves. I want them to know that they are capable to do whatever they decide. I want them to know that it is okay to make mistakes because that is how we learn, by making mistakes. I want them to know that they are not alone in the learning process, that I am with them to facilitate it.

I want to teach because I want to make a lot of changes in my students´ lives for the better. I want to teach because I want them to remember me as a great teacher that really worried not only for their learning, but also for their feelings.

Definitely I want to teach to inform, but more than that I do want to teach to inspire. Students need the therapeutic power of a transformational teacher who “touches” and transforms lives.

What does transformational pedagogy model mean for me?

A teacher using the transformational model is aware of his or her students’ feelings, so he or she can detect the changes in a student’s mood and adapt the environment in the classroom so it can be more supportive for the student and unconsciously enhance the bonds between them. There must be something inside the person that makes him or her have the desire to teach FAR BEYOND A PERSONAL GOAL.

“If we believe that teaching is a mere imparting of information, we have surely aimed too slow”. We need not only to impart information, but to care about our students´ feelings. Students´ feelings are a response to what the school or the teacher has done to satisfy or fulfill their needs as unique individuals. Teachers need to be encouraged and affirmed in their roles, in their potential of transforming lives, and in their calling to the real needs of learners. How students feel in a classroom may be, in the long view, more important than what they know. We, as teachers, need to make our students feel that we care about them, and that we are there to help them to find self-fulfillment through enriching knowledge.

“Transformational pedagogy is an act of teaching designed to change the learner academically, socially, and spiritually.”

  

Transformational pedagogy integrates teaching the whole learner, rather than attending separately to academic, social, and spiritual goals. These three goals are united. Miller (1997) says that holistic education is “based on the premise that each person finds identity, meaning and purpose in life through connections to the community, to the natural world, and to spiritual values such as compassion and peace”

Transformational teaching begins with the learner, and transformational learning involves deep understanding and occurs in classrooms where teachers have high expectations. Students need teachers who communicate that they believe in students and all their potential.

The transformational pedagogy model might impact positively the lives of pre-service and in-service teachers. Pre-service teachers may learn about how to treat their students when it comes to teach. In-service teachers may change the way they treat their students if they were not doing it in a good way. They must have clear that they need not only to impart information, but to care about their students´ feelings.

To wrap up, the transformational teaching model allows us to be a source of inspiration for our students as they do not want someone TO TEACH them, they want someone whom they CAN TRUST IN and LEARN FROM. Good teachers can make great sources of inspiration for their students, and good students can make teachers as the ones they ARE INSPIRED to imitate. All students need is someone to lead them through the way to success.