Two Lessons I Learned from Teaching
I used to speak so fast, even faster than Victor, but now as long as I step onto the stage I slow down my pace and speak like a sloth. I always have a bad taste in clothing, but now my appearance reaches to a top on every weekend. Why? I have been leaning to be a teacher. Teaching changed me a lot, and I learned a lot from teaching, not only pace of speech,or the style of clothing. Tonight I will share two lessons I learned from teaching.
Lesson One to Love
Before I formally stepped onto the teaching stage, I asked many experienced colleagues for their advice. Among them one sharing was quite special: to teach well, you should learn to love your students. At that moment my reaction was like: what? Love? Maybe you are right, but I won’t do it. I will show you even if I don’t love the students, I will be a great teacher.
Why I had such reactions?
First, I was too tired to love. After modified each slide repeatedly, designed each on-class
activity painstakingly, and rehearsed each presentation over and over, I was just too tired to love the students. Another reason was that I hated kids. They are just too noisy to get along with. Look at the mess of them in the classroom, is there any difference between teenage students and bandits(土匪). So I just want to be a good teacher who doesn’t love her students. Absolutely, that thinking was wrong and terrible.
Now I will show you why that thinking was terrible:
Show 1:
Show 2:
Teenagers are naïve, but they are not stupid, they are very smart. They can tell who care about them, they also like people who love them. Sometimes, love weighs even more than lecturing itself. If they love you, they will trust you; if they trust you, your lectures got listened to. Otherwise, if they don’t love you,they won’t trust you; if they don’t trust you; they won’t listen to your words.Then, that will be the end of the world.
Love is the first lesson I learned from teaching. I found love opens a lot of doors, even the door of hearts. I told myself, there definitely will be things or people we don’t like, don’t even pretend to like. Anyway, I should take a step forward, which is to love.
Lesson Two to set rules
The longer I teach, the more deeply I felt that love is not that all powerful.
When the students are late for class, I cannot say: hey girl, you are so good! Don’t be late next week. Now sit on to your seat. When the kids got an eight for a 20 grades test,I can’t say: come on boy, don’t let me down. Believe me, if I said that, he would have a six next time.
What should I do? I set rules. Here are some of them:
One minute late,stand-up at the door for one minute. Three times late this term, get out of my class room. Once fail the exam, yellow warning, no improvement for the next two tests, let you daddy call me. Wow, I am such a mean person, the rules are vicious,like the stepmothers in fairy tales! These vicious rules are warnings to tellthe students which are right, which are wrong and when to get punished.
Why I had the courage to act like a wicked stepmother? Aristotle wrote: seeking knowledge is of human’s nature. The apprenticeship(学徒制) may be the earliest form of teacher-students relation. And coach-athletes relation is another form of teacher-students relation, all of which contributes to the good performance of students. Love doesn’t mean spoiling and unprincipled protection. Rules are necessary. Rules are effective. At least, now more kids in the class get a full mark.
The second lesson I learned from teaching is to set rules. Rules are necessary not only in teaching but also in our own life. Why we fail to keep fit or lost weight? We love ourselves too much to carry the plans.
I know there will be a long way before I become a great teacher. Now I know the first weapon to be a great teacher is to love, the second is to use rules.
