Nika Gegechkori: The New Physics Teacher
Up until last year, Nika Mas would pay a visit to GZAAT every time he came back to Georgia. When he was offered the possibility to participate in the teacher assistant program, he thought it would be nice to remain in Georgia while doing something worthwhile. So he accepted the request to temporarily replace Kato Tsuladze and teach physics for a semester.
Nika already has some teaching experience: he was a teacher assistant at his university, starting from freshman year, helping to conduct classes and grade assignments. However, working in high school is a more challenging experience, since it involves conducting classes with kids who are younger and therefore more hectic than the students in university.
According to Nika, being a teacher is fun, yet a serious responsibility considering that “you can influence a student’s interest or understanding on some topic that is already familiar to you." On the other hand, communicating with people far more different than what he was like as a student is an interesting experience for him.
Since Nika was a student at GZAAT, he gets to be colleagues with his former teachers. He describes this experience as an opportunity to get to know the side of the teachers that is mostly hidden from the students. He gets to discuss everyday issues with them and learn more about their personal lives.
Nika plans to continue working towards his goal of finishing his master’s degree in physics, which he needs to accomplish by studying two more semesters at a university.
Tamar Muskhelishvili: The New German Teacher
Tata Mas moved to Germany when she was 2 years old and lived there until 2018, even though the plan was to return to her homeland after two years. Tata always felt comfortable in Germany, growing up alongside her friends and receiving an education; however, “it never sufficed to feel home." With the help of her mother, who gave her Georgian lessons every day, and her older sister’s daily reminders and yearly visits from Georgia, she is now able to consider herself a full-fledged Georgian.
Tata’s dream never was to become a teacher. Not only because she is a cultural anthropologist and a literary translator, but also because she has “always considered [herself] way too introverted to be standing in a room full of teenagers." Regardless, when she returned from Germany, Tata was sure that she wanted to leave a positive impact on her homeland. And what would be a better way of helping Georgia develop other than educating the next generation? Tata Mas found out about our teachers’ training program through her friends, one of them being Ana Abashidze, a Georgian teacher for the junior high.
She went through training with Anthony Schierman, who gave her the possibility to learn about conducting classes: “There is only so much one can learn about teaching in theory; however, observing the process first-hand is a whole different experience." Moreover, Tata's interest in becoming a teacher grew as she started seeing GZAAT as a family.
Most importantly, she experienced living through stress and managing time properly. To this day, Tata thinks that she “would not have been able to plunge into the deep without last year’s experience.” Additionally, Tata Mas was surprised that teaching is much more than just standing in front of a class and conducting a lesson. “It is just a tiny part of the process,” she says. It’s a job where she has to do much more than the students get to see. Nevertheless, apart from the actual teaching experience, Tata thinks that forming bonds with the students is as crucial as providing them with learning materials, partially because sometimes students do the teaching part themselves!
Tamar Chkhikvadze: Training Teacher in Georgian
Ever since she was a little girl, Tako Mas always noticed her compassion towards the Georgian subject. Not only was she interested in literature, but she was good at it too! Her mother was a Georgian teacher as well, but Tako never dreamed of becoming one herself. However, Tako’s overall interest in literature did its job, and she ended up in Newton Free School and Millennium School, where she both taught Georgian and worked as an advisor in primary school. She found out about the teacher training system through a mutual friend, who is a part of the school’s committee. Tako was always curious about the way of teaching and the materials that students go through in GZAAT, so she was immediately hooked by the program.
Opening a new chapter in her life, Tako realized that providing education for older students is different in many ways, including no longer being as responsible for taking care of them compared to when she was teaching primary school kids. Moreover, the materials given are much more sophisticated and deep compared to those of other schools. Most importantly, the Harkness table method played a big role in her experience at GZAAT, giving her the possibility to form discussions on lessons.
According to Tako Mas, “the bonds formed between the faculty members and the students can be felt all around the school." She appreciates that the students and the teachers are perceived as equals Tako Mas thinks that the school has enough potential to reach out to students from other schools, more specifically public ones: “Giving these kids the possibility to see GZAAT is essential because some of them do not even realize that there are schools out there with the same possibilities that this school offers." Even though the school is actively involved in arranging exchange programs with schools abroad, Tako Mas thinks that it is important to interact with education centers in several regions of Georgia too.
Edited by: Ninia Kadagidze
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