Inspiring teachers will inspire learners
To learn with passion and love, one needs teachers with drive and a nurturing spirit
BELIEVE this: when teachers inspire, students will aspire to greater heights. A teacher’s enthusiasm is infectious and can inspire students to take ownership of their learning.
We often speak about student-centred learning. What about teacher-centred learning? I am not alluding here to a teacher’s professional knowledge base, which is a given; I am referring to learning that awakens and informs a teacher about self-awareness; about the desirable and personal teacher traits she already has, or not; but needs to have. The need to learn about the essence of her true self – the store and substance of goodness she has within her as well as her shortcomings.
Remember, a teacher communicates to her charges more than the subject material she is teaching. She is engaged in a human relationship, the management of which will determine the nature of all future learning transactions.
Ministering to the young is not a cut-and-dried job; it is a vocation and not all have the passion or calling for it. Yet, one hopes that along the course of training or teaching, the said person will begin to find joy and meaning in the actual act despite the onslaught of impositions that see no end.
Inspiring teachers will motivate both themselves and their learners to aspire to learn with joy and meaning no matter where the school or what their level of learning may be. To learn with passion and love, one needs teachers with drive and a nurturing spirit; teachers with a growth mind-set who embrace wholly their calling even in the face of mounting challenges.
Yes, we may have all the technological devices at our disposal to make learning appealing but the best resource is still the human resource. Only inspired teachers, policy makers, and politicians, can tip the balance to make the difference, to provide the cutting edge we are looking for in our young.
From experience we know that a person has to be caring enough to become a teacher. She must care about who she is to herself (her true nature), and who she is to others. She must first FIND herself, before she can be useful to others.
An uncaring teacher can foul up on many levels – her own work, her students’ progress, and her callous attitude that results in lack-lustre teaching can prove disastrous to the system.
A caring teacher is a motivator who can stir enthusiasm and who seeks to inspire goodness and lead- ership qualities in others because she is a self-inspired leader. Inspired teachers are instrumental in making learning happen and they are aware that everyone can learn if suitably inspired.
But we all have our blind spots. These may prevent us from seeing what holds us back from giving our best. If we do not pause to reflect “How am I as a teacher?” and learn from it, we may resort to putting on a “teacher façade” that gives the impression that we know what we are doing. But, in the core of our being, do we really? It is not so much what we do in class that impacts students; it is why and how we do what we do, because only then we are being true to ourselves and our students; it is then that they see us as caring and inspiring persons.
We have to dig deep within ourselves for that sense of self-awareness to discern if we are inspired enough to do what we are doing and whether we have an innate desire to inspire and challenge ourselves and our charges to be the best they can be in a win-win situation. Inspiration is a seed found within a person who has potential, and this seed can become the driving force for growth of the individual because it is a form of energy that has creative power!
A note to policy-makers: Yes, money is important, but it is not everything. Inspiration is more than salary-reliant. The value of money appears meagre in comparison to the sense of fulfilment one experiences in having imparted the joy of learning, in discovering and developing one’s potential, ability, and self-worth in the education process. So, let’s make our education process one joyful and memorable Malaysian experience. LUCILLE DASS
Star-NiE freelance consultant-trainer, Penang.