Tuesday, November 07, 2006
“What makes a good RE teacher?”
Was reading a church member’s blog and the topic was: “What makes a good RE teacher?” This topic was discussed in the Church where the church member goes to, and there was list drawn out by the members there. It is a good list and many things for us to learn from the list.
This lead me to think about what i think is important for a RE teacher. From what I have seen and heard in the church or things I have seen and learnt from the older brothers and sisters in church and also experiences as a student before I came out with a short list of my own. This list I did not put things that are very obvious a teacher would to have like good bible knowledge, patience etc, those things are all very important and easily identifiable, in my list here, are things I feel is important but yet always deemed as not so important or always mistakes made by all of us.
- Spend time with your students often and not only during class, this way they will feel close to you even till they are old. I had teachers who spent much time with us before talking to us, showing concerns, going out with us, joining us in our activities and till now after many years we are still very close with them. On the other hand I have had teachers who only interact with us during class, and now we do not even talk much when we see each other. Spending time with our students is a good way for us to understand them more and allow us to be able to take care of them better, and the students will feel closer to you and would look to you as an example and look for you for help when they need.
- Do not judge a student too quickly. Even if the student is been reprimanded by fellow teachers, always find out completely what happen before doing anything. I know of an incident that happened before. There was a student who was been scolded by a counselor for something the student seemingly had done wrong. Another counselor who was the counselor in-charged of the student came in and without find out the complete happening joined the fellow counselor in reprimanding the student. It turned out that the student had did nothing wrong. And the whole happening was seen or heard by all the other students and till now there is still no respect for these counselors by the whole batch of students who are now youths.
- Show no partiality among your students. They will give you their respect if they know you are always fair to all of them.
- Learn to see the good points in your students, and not always dwell only on their bad points, this way u will find that your children are all very good in their own ways. I know of RE teachers who always go around telling people how bad, naughty their students are. So much so that these teachers have influenced others and all these people starts to blacklist these students as naughty children who will never improve and start to prejudiced against these children.
- Be true to your students. They will know that you are genuine in your care for them. And even when you admonish them, they will know you meant good for them and will accept your admonishment for them. If they know that your care for them is not genuine and maybe is just out of duty because you just happen to be their RE teacher but have never shown concern, your advice or admonishment to them will only bring around more negative results.
Above are points I have learnt from my older bros and sisters in Church or have seen or experience them before. These are areas where all of us tend to make mistakes. They are something not easily done and requires more from the teachers, but it is something that all of us should learn to take note of.
I am not speaking this as a person who has done all this, but as a person who knows all these are important and want to pursue it.
-Peace-
p.s the points written are written for me to learn and not to point fingers. Pls take of it as a chance of all us to retrospect and improve ourselves.
This lead me to think about what i think is important for a RE teacher. From what I have seen and heard in the church or things I have seen and learnt from the older brothers and sisters in church and also experiences as a student before I came out with a short list of my own. This list I did not put things that are very obvious a teacher would to have like good bible knowledge, patience etc, those things are all very important and easily identifiable, in my list here, are things I feel is important but yet always deemed as not so important or always mistakes made by all of us.
- Spend time with your students often and not only during class, this way they will feel close to you even till they are old. I had teachers who spent much time with us before talking to us, showing concerns, going out with us, joining us in our activities and till now after many years we are still very close with them. On the other hand I have had teachers who only interact with us during class, and now we do not even talk much when we see each other. Spending time with our students is a good way for us to understand them more and allow us to be able to take care of them better, and the students will feel closer to you and would look to you as an example and look for you for help when they need.
- Do not judge a student too quickly. Even if the student is been reprimanded by fellow teachers, always find out completely what happen before doing anything. I know of an incident that happened before. There was a student who was been scolded by a counselor for something the student seemingly had done wrong. Another counselor who was the counselor in-charged of the student came in and without find out the complete happening joined the fellow counselor in reprimanding the student. It turned out that the student had did nothing wrong. And the whole happening was seen or heard by all the other students and till now there is still no respect for these counselors by the whole batch of students who are now youths.
- Show no partiality among your students. They will give you their respect if they know you are always fair to all of them.
- Learn to see the good points in your students, and not always dwell only on their bad points, this way u will find that your children are all very good in their own ways. I know of RE teachers who always go around telling people how bad, naughty their students are. So much so that these teachers have influenced others and all these people starts to blacklist these students as naughty children who will never improve and start to prejudiced against these children.
- Be true to your students. They will know that you are genuine in your care for them. And even when you admonish them, they will know you meant good for them and will accept your admonishment for them. If they know that your care for them is not genuine and maybe is just out of duty because you just happen to be their RE teacher but have never shown concern, your advice or admonishment to them will only bring around more negative results.
Above are points I have learnt from my older bros and sisters in Church or have seen or experience them before. These are areas where all of us tend to make mistakes. They are something not easily done and requires more from the teachers, but it is something that all of us should learn to take note of.
I am not speaking this as a person who has done all this, but as a person who knows all these are important and want to pursue it.
-Peace-
p.s the points written are written for me to learn and not to point fingers. Pls take of it as a chance of all us to retrospect and improve ourselves.
// posted by madcowkey @ 11/07/2006 02:49:00 AM 
