I’ve said it many times before:
The job of a teacher is to inspire, to challenge, to excite their students to want to learn …..
If we can’t inspire the students in our classroom, we are simply not doing our job. If we are unable to challenge them with tasks that provoke them to think, reflect and grow, we are still not doing our job. And if we are unable to excite in our students a desire to learn, to ignite a passion and love of learning, then learning will just not happen.
Although I’ve blogged these thoughts often, this time the words are not just mine. Instead they are said, very passionately
The fundamental role of a teacher is not to deliver information, it is to guide the social process of learning …
The most important thing a teacher does is make every student feel like they are important, to make them feel accountable for doing the work of learning ……
….. what really matters is what happens inside the learner’s head and making a learner think seems best achieved in a social environment with other learners and a caring teacher.
It is indeed through the influence of the teacher who creates a nurturing and caring classroom environment, that our students are able to learn, grow and achieve.
We must never doubt the incredibly strong impact that teachers have on their students. Creating a caring, nurturing and safe learning space within the confines of each classroom is what it really is all about! It is the role of teachers
- to take time to get to know their students
- to provide individualized programs which nurture the skills of each learner
- to develop in each student an ‘I can’ attitude from which confidence can grow
- to ensure a safe and secure classroom where risk taking is encouraged
- to create opportunities in which students can be actively immersed in new learning
- to guide students’ learning by providing them with a scaffold they will be able to use throughout their life to pursue future learning
- to encourage students to be patient and to not expect that learning is instantaneous
- to foster an understanding of the value and benefits gained from collaboration
- to guard against students competing against each other
- to help students appreciate the value of learning by doing
With this question sitting in the back of my mind over the last few days, I realize that this is the kernel of the issue I constantly grapple with when I try to inspire within students and teachers alike a love of reading and a love of learning. Inspiration has many facets. It encompasses much. And it requires the guiding hand of a teacher to ensure that it happens.
What does inspiration involve and aim to achieve in our classes?
- to awaken the mind of the learner
- to arouse focused attention
- to fill students with enthusiasm
- to excite passionate interest
- to motivate students to go one step further than they may do otherwise
- to initiate activities in which students can learn with and from each other
- to enable the student to also be the teacher
- to stir imagination
- to encourage risk taking
- to create excitement
- to arouse and enthuse involvement and participation
- to light an insatiable spark within the heart and soul of the learner
- to stimulate learners to be lifelong learners!
