Teaching
Today was a lesson in teaching.
Some sound advice came in and got me thinking. One of the other teachers said, "Sometimes, we teachers need to love more and teach less".
I think I agree with her. With some students, the issue is really they need attention. What happened was today one of my students had a bad day. I do not condone the students activities; to the fairsians who read this, please remember that this is NOT what you should be doing.
Shortly after, the student started to give me an attitude. To be fair, the student was obedient enough to sit down when told to do so. But when i tried to talk to the student, it started to get ugly and the student became all hard and aggressive. I decided to be patient and just leave it.
The issue here is really as teachers, sometimes we need to love them for who they are, and listen to their hearts. The student's cry was really, no adult understands me. No adult bothers about me, all they care is scold and scold and see my bad points. And sometimes we as teachers fail to see their good points and encourage them. This was for me a lesson, as I was reminded to love them first.
Later, at tennis with Evan, she said one of her senior teachers said" Some of these kids do not have any idea where they are going. Your job is not to teach them, but to help them find and get to their destination"
Too true. I assumed the students wanted to pass their exams and yes it is good for them, but some of them do not want to bother with the exams, because they have no goals nor direction. (At 16, what goals and direction would you have? And if you did have them, are they still the same today? If they were, i'd suggest a careful study of them to bring them back to reality. at 16, i'd say most if not all of us were too young for proper planning).
So our duty becomes (this is more so for the normal classes; express classes generally will head for JC/Poly) to help them find meaning and direction in life. Not merely to pass the exam, though that objective must be emphasized as a MEANS to and END, not an end in itself.
Why do students in 3a-e study? because they want to go to JC or poly, because they have a end view, though it may not be complete at least it helps them press on this sem. But there are some who do not have the next stage thought out, whether poly, ITE, private school, Shatec (all these are good, none better than the other), and these will find that they are studying for the sake of studying which is meaningless. And of course a chore that sucks. So we need to help them find their end, their purpose. To do so, we need to connect with the students.
Finally, the teacher who spoke to me reminded me of this "after a while, you will ask yourself, and God, where are the changes, why are the students the same or worse, getting bad? Then we need to remember the call of God, gird ourselves, and take one step at a time."
Miracles may happen, but God mostly works in steps. Are we patient enough to obey for EVERY little step?
Some sound advice came in and got me thinking. One of the other teachers said, "Sometimes, we teachers need to love more and teach less".
I think I agree with her. With some students, the issue is really they need attention. What happened was today one of my students had a bad day. I do not condone the students activities; to the fairsians who read this, please remember that this is NOT what you should be doing.
Shortly after, the student started to give me an attitude. To be fair, the student was obedient enough to sit down when told to do so. But when i tried to talk to the student, it started to get ugly and the student became all hard and aggressive. I decided to be patient and just leave it.
The issue here is really as teachers, sometimes we need to love them for who they are, and listen to their hearts. The student's cry was really, no adult understands me. No adult bothers about me, all they care is scold and scold and see my bad points. And sometimes we as teachers fail to see their good points and encourage them. This was for me a lesson, as I was reminded to love them first.
Later, at tennis with Evan, she said one of her senior teachers said" Some of these kids do not have any idea where they are going. Your job is not to teach them, but to help them find and get to their destination"
Too true. I assumed the students wanted to pass their exams and yes it is good for them, but some of them do not want to bother with the exams, because they have no goals nor direction. (At 16, what goals and direction would you have? And if you did have them, are they still the same today? If they were, i'd suggest a careful study of them to bring them back to reality. at 16, i'd say most if not all of us were too young for proper planning).
So our duty becomes (this is more so for the normal classes; express classes generally will head for JC/Poly) to help them find meaning and direction in life. Not merely to pass the exam, though that objective must be emphasized as a MEANS to and END, not an end in itself.
Why do students in 3a-e study? because they want to go to JC or poly, because they have a end view, though it may not be complete at least it helps them press on this sem. But there are some who do not have the next stage thought out, whether poly, ITE, private school, Shatec (all these are good, none better than the other), and these will find that they are studying for the sake of studying which is meaningless. And of course a chore that sucks. So we need to help them find their end, their purpose. To do so, we need to connect with the students.
Finally, the teacher who spoke to me reminded me of this "after a while, you will ask yourself, and God, where are the changes, why are the students the same or worse, getting bad? Then we need to remember the call of God, gird ourselves, and take one step at a time."
Miracles may happen, but God mostly works in steps. Are we patient enough to obey for EVERY little step?
Labels: Teaching
posted by W | Wednesday, September 19, 2007
1 Comments:
Indeed! Thanks for the post, it is a very good reminder. I tend to forget what I am doing even in the lives of my CG kids and what I am doing during the sessions, I may be more interested to complete the lesson than learning about their lives.
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