INSIDE A TEACHER’S HEART PART 3
How can I make my teaching efficient and effective? How I make the teachinglearning experience inside my classroom enjoyable but meaningful? How can I discipline my students without hurting them physically and emotionally? How can I make my pupils understand that I want only what’s best for them? How can I inculcate in them good traits and behavior that will help them to be productive and good citizens of this country someday? These are only some of the questions that a teacher asks herself every day before she enters and leaves a classroom.
The first question how to make teaching efficient and effective, well to be an efficient teacher is easy enough. To be efficient, a teacher must have a well-planned and written daily lesson log, a validated assessment tool, well-designed teaching/ Instructional devices, practice time on task (tot) and come to school fifteen minutes before the start of class.
A dedicated teacher can accomplished all these so easily, however, to be effective is a different matter, it’s not easy to be an effective teacher, one must know various teaching styles and strategies and execute the lesson well in a manner that makes the teaching process enjoyable and meaningful. The teacher must love what she was doing, must be flexible and energetic so as to engage her pupils in the teachinglearning process. Efficiency and effectiveness in teaching must go hand in hand.
Another matter to consider in the teaching-learning process in this day and age of 21st Century Learners is Discipline with the big “D”. It is not easy nowadays to discipline pupils. You cannot shout or yell at them anymore even if they are noisy or unruly. Teachers are careful now in dealing with recalcitrant pupils. You cannot just pinch an ear there or an ear here. You cannot discipline them anymore with the rod. So what should I do since a disorderly class cannot produce learned students? To be honest, I’m still learning on how deal with stubborn students. I’m having a hard time on how to capture their interest to the lesson at hand, for I know that they will stop misbehaving if the teaching-learning process is interesting. So this is another hurdle and challenge that a teacher must overcome. A teacher must be fully equipped with the knowledge, skills and strategies suited for the 21st Century Learners. She must also be a 21st Century Teacher. She should also possess the patient of the saints so to speak in dealing with obstinate students to avoid problems with difficult parents and guardians. After all we are after the betterment of the learners for them to have a good future someday.
“Values are caught not taught”. This saying expresses how youngsters learn good manners and right conduct, good behavior and the right attitude. Our students spend more time in the school so they acquire most of their traits and behavior in the classroom. The teacher has a significant role in molding the minds of her pupils. She must serve as a role model to them. Through her words and actions she is able to ingrained in them qualities that will make them productive and better citizens in the world in the future.
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The Author Is Teacher III At SAGUIN INTEGRATED SCHOOL