LOVING Children?

That same wise, young headmaster told me, "A great teacher is one loves children!" I thought to myself, "Ho hum, here is the indiscriminate line we tell students never to use in a job interview."  But, aha!  He did just what we encourage students to do:  He went on to put that concept in concrete terms. 

He delineated:  "A great teacher is effective in observing and matching children's needs to her teaching methods because she truly wants to know each child and how she might best help them!  She is the one who feels with them, plays with them, eats with them!"

When I introduce the concepts of teaching, I share with students that my nearly 40 years has led me to perceive teaching is four essential components:    Knowledge, 

Skill

Art and 

Passion.

What this headmaster helped me see is that what has impressed me with the good teachers over the past week and what has disappointed me in the less than good is the presence or absence of passion---deep commitment to children and teaching/learning.  

The young teacher in her second year in the field whom I observed the second day was filled with passion to transform lives--- and the children felt it, believed in through her positive affect--- her smile, her expressive voice, her laughter, the way she engaged the children's experiences in her teaching, the way she sang and danced and played with them!  She asked them questions that challenged them to think creatively.  

I have only seen one or two teachers who used physical punishment with the children:  slapping their head over a mistake.  I try to put this in a cultural context:  many teachers learned this humiliation from their own childhood experiences---perhaps some even learned it from mission schools of the past century!  

But the tentative hypothesis I am at today---after a mere 7 days in the country---is that the good teachers, perhaps the great teachers, did not NEED to resort to physical punishment!  They had built relationships with the children which EXUDED respect and they offered experiences that were interesting and developmentally appropriate to the child!  

I invite my student teachers to ask themselves how much they enjoy being with children?  My observations so far have lent support for my theory:  if teachers are passionate about inspiring children to great things, the children will sense it and will respond wi attentiveness, their own explosion of joy:  my favorite sound continues to be the laughter of children within a school classroom!