Welcome to My Blog

Hello, my name is Maryam Najib. When I was in about 3rd grade, I decided that I wanted to be a teacher. I cannot recall exactly what made me reach this conclusion. I also decided that same year that I wanted to marry my childhood friend Yousuf and name one of our future children Esa. I have accomplished two of those goals, and now I am working towards the third: my education degree. I moved to Columbus about 2 1/2 years ago after getting married, and previously lived in Toledo, my hometown. I have three sisters and two brothers, all of who have all decided to be teachers except my 12 year old brother. I'll give him some time though, children are always changing their minds about careers.

I used to enjoy reading, art, taking walks outside, hanging out with friends, Karate, swordsmanship, sleeping, video games, watching movies, the list goes on. However, the older I got, the less time I had to enjoy each of these hobbies. It got to the point where I was doing almost none of these except on rare occasions. What happened? Homework. Like so many other people, school was slowly draining any social life I had until I began to resent going to school despite previously loving it. I was so tired of memorizing and then regurgitating information I had "learned" at 2 or 3 a.m., only to almost completely forget that information by the following school year. 

That's why as a teacher, one of my main goals is to get students to learn in what I hope will be, fun, inspiring, and memorable ways. I know this is the goal of most teachers, but it's desired for a reason. I aim to get them to learn, not just memorize, to participate out of a desire to, not just because of pressure, and to continue to look forward to that next day of school, instead of by dreading it. Most importantly though, students should have some time to enjoy their daily lives with family and friends, rather than dedicating the majority of what can be 17+ years to staring at a book or a board with words on it. If people don't have time for a life outside of school, how are they then going to apply what they've learned into their daily lives? How would they get the chance to decide what they really want to do as careers? How will they be able to develop themselves if they don't have time for themselves?