Friday, May 6, 2016

We As Teachers...

"Everyone is a genius, but if you judge a fish on its ability to climb a tree it will spend its whole life believing it's stupid" -Albert Einstein

As teachers our job is so much more than teaching, we are role models and motivators. We are also partly responsible for a childs self-esteem... When a child enters our classroom they give us their innocence along with their self-esteem, they fully trust us with it and we make the decision consciously or unconsciously to help it grow or to minimize it.

We, as teachers NEED to be motivators. I, as I'm sure many other teachers do, make the conscious decision not to tell my student they are wrong. Instead I smile and say "Try again" followed by "Would you like a clue" (giving the first letter of the word if they need the clue). If they still can't think of the answer I simply say "That's okay, don't worry, you'll get it next time". And  I have found my students are more willing to try and participate. I think we all forget that constantly saying "No", "Incorrect", "That's not right", "You're wrong" or whatever quote you want, slowly breaks self-esteem. We, as teachers need to help build their self-esteem, to help protect what they so innocently trust us with every time they walk through our classroom door.

I've had the honour to be able to talk to Kyle Schwartz, an American teacher who created the "I wish my teacher knew" activity. Each child is given a piece of paper and writes something he or she wants you to know about them. Kyle informed me that most of the time you get papers that say "My dog is called Bongo" or "My favourite ice- cream is chocolate" but every now and then you read one piece of paper that takes your breath away. And she was right. I did this activity today, one of my 10 year old's papers made the world stand still for a minute. On this paper was written: " I wish my teacher knew I try my best in English class and I'm sorry I make mistakes."  I was speechless... Give a child a voice and they will surprise you every time.

"Sobre cada niño se debería poner un cartel que dijiera "Tratar con cuidado, contiene sueños."

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