I teach Biology(Up to A levels and Sciences(KS3 and 4) with humour and passion, this I have done for decades

SUPPORTING STATEMENT FOR THE SCIENCE TEACHING POSITION

Teaching has been a vital part of my entire professional life. It is the only job I have done consistently without a break for most of my academic sojourn. Good teachers are not easy to come by because these group of scarce human resource not only help their students to gain novel analytical tools, but also ignite their passion for learning, enrich their understanding of the physical world experience and stimulate them to advance their own ideas.
My teaching career started 28years ago as a youth corps member in my home country, Nigeria; this is a one-year mandatory post graduate Federal government scheme that supplies affordable labour to rural and under-served areas of our country. I was posted to a rural community school to assist school children with inadequate teachers. Although, I had no previous teacher training but on completion of the 1-year service to the nation, the authorities of the school, the students and parents found it extremely difficult to part way with me saying I was a good teacher and had greatly made tremendous impacts in the lives of their children. I was praised to high heavens for my efforts however, instead of allowing it to go into my head, it rather motivated me to put in efforts to be fully trained as a teacher.
Over the years, my teaching experiences have shown me that in most cases, our students are diverse in terms of their backgrounds, difficulties and in the manner they seek guidance, which therefore necessitates differentiating the curriculum and teaching methodologies, so that no child is left behind unattended due to their peculiarities, similarly, bearing the above in mind, all my lesson preparations, the manner of presentations had always considered that every theoretical model is broken down into tiny pieces as well as relating it to the outside world.
My training in one of the topmost Universities in Nigeria in the 90s had adequately equipped me with both the theoretical and practical content knowledge of basics of sciences and especially of biology up to ‘A’ levels even though that was quite a long time but continuous professional development and regular attendance of subject cluster meetings over the years in South Africa as an educator had ensured that I am kept abreast of current developments in the field of sciences.

However, it is an understatement to say teaching has changed quite a lot since my qualification, but my tra