School: Oval North High School
Based: Mitchell’s Plain, Western Cape
Biography of Michael Sterksen
My passion for teaching comes from my grade 11 year, where the school that I was attending ran a tutoring program for learners struggling with Mathematics and Physical Science. I was part of the program and the two educators that helped us set up the lessons for the grade 10s and 11s that we were tutoring happened to be my Mathematics teacher and science teacher, both of them were very proud educators. They had degrees that could provide them with careers that provided more money and less stress. One afternoon I had a discussion with both of them and they told me a story of how rewarding teaching can be and purposeful of a job it was, with my current found passion of loving to tutor naturally led me to the field.
My fields of interest are mathematics and science, I would like to inspire learners who has a passion for wanting to understand the world around them and provide a lens to look at the world to make conclusion based in the foundation of research. There are also the learners that don’t like mathematics and science, I would like to provide them with the skills and tools to appreciate the subject.
I hope to one day see a classroom that promotes learning, and actual learning not just teaching for a test so that learners can pass the grade so that the next 50 learners can come to your class and repeat the cycle. A system that does not bank information into the brains of our learners but stimulates their brains with old ideas in ways. A way forward where there is no competition between schools to be better then the next but rather a space where competition promotes the improvement of all schools.
I think my “superpower” is patience, mathematics is not a subject that many learners enjoy at first and it requires a lot of patience to get them in a position where they are comfortable to make mistakes and learn.
