I visualize teaching as supplying nutrients to a plant. A gardener supplies nutrients to a plant and waters it but the plant has to absorb nutrients and utilize them to manufacture its food and grow. I believe that a teacher is like a gardener nourishing his plants. A student should absorb and utilize the teacher's lessons to expand his knowledge.

    Learning can only be facilitated by different aids of instruction and teacher is one of the aids that are available to a student. A teacher can make a student aware of concepts, techniques and facts related to a subject. A student has to understand these facts and concepts and utilize them to increase understanding of the subject

    Like differences in growth rates of plants, students differ in their learning rates and styles. Some students may learn by listening to lectures whereas others learn by participating in hands-on activity such as a laboratory experiments. Reading books and interacting with others is a learning method for some students. A teacher's job to try and facilitate learning for all kinds of students. Lecturing to students using slides is one means of teaching that I use. Demonstrations are also a part of my teaching in order to make students understand a concept. Students form groups and conduct experiments, thus getting a chance to learn by interacting with each other. In case students who still find it difficult to understand a subject, I put in extra time to teach them.

    Teaching has been a learning process for me as my knowledge about textiles has improved. Preparing for my classes has helped me learn topics in textiles that I had not learnt in my formal education. My teaching experience taught me better time management and organization of work. My presentation skills have also been fine tuned as a result of teaching.

I have discovered that a teacher-student relation is a symbiotic relation and both benefit from the relationship.