About Me

Below you can find my full CV, which I update regularly. If you cannot view the embedded document, please click the “Download” link below to save and view the file. If you’d like to know more about any of my work, please feel free to get in touch.

We can compare the education system to the art of ceramics. Clay is like a student who came to you to take shape. Here the role of the teacher is to become a master ceramic artist. The student will become the last ceramic and continue his life. It is a long and arduous process to achieve that final solid state of ceramics. In this process, it is always necessary to be balanced. In order for the final form of ceramic to be art, it must tell you a story about yourself. Art doesn't have to tell anyone anything. In other words, the teacher will see something of his / her own at the end of the work. When the artist does his art for art, not for the desire to be appreciated, that process will proceed really well and efficiently for both the artist and his work. As a teacher, I am always obliged to give my students a universal education in the light of science, even if their perceptions of society change. Shaping that work by knowing what society needs, rather than what society wants, will reveal the real art. The work for art will enlighten and develop future generations. Future generations will be able to benefit from this work and learn about the past and how the past is shaped. One day, this work will be the source of new work. We can think of the differences, the proportions of the minerals that make clay clay, the variables such as the structure of the soil, the way the student is raised, his family, ethnicity, material situation, and reflections of the society on student.

I believe that communication is one of the most important elements of education. When you are in contact with clay, you know what that clay wants and you can give it what it needs. Sometimes excess hot can dry clay, then it is necessary to saturate the clay again and knead it to get consistency. Sometimes the clay becomes too runny and this time it requires drying and then kneading again when it comes to the required consistency. The teacher's role here is neither to squeeze them on his students nor to be unaware of them by keeping himself away from them. I think it is one of the most important tasks of an educator to see their needs and provide them as much as they can, in constant communication with his/her students. The role of the family in this communication is very important. If I only know the structure of the soil, then I can know in which way I can shape that clay more easily. 

For classroom management, the most important elements are students and teachers. Then we can talk about classroom rules and routines. In this context, the rules I will put together with my students will enable us to spend the school year together in a beautiful, peaceful, efficient and comfortable way. In this process, it would be a great mistake to think that I can shape the clay by treating it as I want. A ceramic artist should always listen to clay and realize what he wants. He must decide how to proceed with it and not use it rudely. Clay may lose its shape for various reasons. But I can always make it right. I need to trust clay. As long as I don't force it, Clay will leave itself to the desired shape. Every rule I make with my students will increase their respect for themselves and to other people. This is very important to me, because life is not just about school, and I think that what is learned should be used in every aspect of life. Being fair in this process is a very important phenomenon. But in order to teach my students the sense of fairness, I need to teach them that each of them is valuable and worthy of effort. Just as each clay has a different structure; while some of them deal with ordinary methods, I should not forget that some of them can be shaped in different ways even though they push me more. Even if I don't know the structure of the clay, I should investigate what I should do, and if necessary, I need to get ideas from more skilled people. The artist should remember that each work is unique and valuable, and the care given to each is important. The artist should not forget that it is very difficult to do the same thing the same way a second time, even if he/she gives the same attention to it. Each work requires separate care and dedication. Being fair is very important here. 

Every step of the training process is important. Just like clay goes through a lot of processes and every step is important to get the final form of ceramics. Each clay has its own structure, it should be deliberately shaped. But only with this does the student need to reinforce what he has learned and strengthen them, so to speak. Just as clay turns from soft soil to ceramics… Each clay has its own degree of firing, some require higher temperatures to solidify, some require low temperature. Some students understand the subject more quickly, while others need more labor and dedication. For this, I need to know the levels of my students. To keep track of their levels, I can do pop-quizzes for evaluation purposes only, not for scoring purposes. One of the most important things I care about during the education process is to take care of every student, to see the shortcomings, to show enough care for each of them and to take them to a certain level of education if I can. So in order to realize what my students need, I need to follow them. I need to know about their infrastructure. But remember, when the ceramic takes its final shape, it is so durable that even with a diamond-tipped drill you can hardly make changes. When we shape a student, it is necessary to be aware that some information will be permanent, that the return will be very difficult or not possible at all. Therefore, I must be the one who checks the accuracy of the information I provide and always follows the innovations in education. I must protect my students as much as I can from external sources of information and bad factors.

To summarize, we can compare the education process to the process of turning clay into ceramics by using various methods. It is not easy to reveal a hard and durable element like ceramics, just like what I need to do during the education process for my students to become useful individuals one day. to stay in touch with the students and their environment at all times, to be fair to all of them without forgetting that each student is a single individual in the educational environment and to realize what is necessary for their development and to provide them. Ceramics have been used in many places to meet the needs of human beings since the day it was discovered, just as the variety of choices students will make in the future... Whatever they want to be, I will do my best to give them this infrastructure.