Connection is the Key!

I recently have read a handful of chapters of Lee Gutskind's book ["What I Didn't Know: True Stories of Becoming a Teacher"]. And guess what I have benefited from it? I think they can all be comprehended perfectly in these three words: Priceless, Immense, and Timeless. :) 

Now let's get ourselves to the chase, Educating a student, we are told, generically, is about dispensing and receiving information. Many teachers do well to systematize their lessons and even supplement them altogether with creative visual aids—thereby making the entire instructions—meaningful to the students. Exaggeration aside, the teachers' role is so much comprehensive than by just preparing lesson plans and decorating well-embellished instructional materials. They are absolutely no more good than a magician who has all his tools yet couldn't attract the audience of his execution. 

When building "connections" get wrong, nearly everything you do to get into shape will dramatically fall by the wayside. They are almost as good as rubbish. What we actually need as teachers is to take into serious account who our students are. We need to know them as who they are. We need to make them feel they are valued, they are given credence, and they are cared about. In this way, the connections are assuredly linked.  As the 2016's award-winning teacher Jahana Hayes writes:

"Fostering a collaborative culture and building relationships is one of the often overlooked lessons in schools. I want every one of my students to have felt included and represented in the conversation and to remember how they felt in my class. As educators, we must work together to find ways to empower our students intellectually, socially, and emotionally. We should use our students’ cultural experiences as a way to impart knowledge and skills and begin to change attitudes, and not as reminders of the obstacles that monopolize their daily lives. Our country has so many different communities—urban, suburban, rural, regional, and even Native American reservations. Our schools have to address the needs of all these communities. We must explore creative and inclusive ways of reaching students. Every child is entitled to an educational experience that is rich and robust and reflective of their personal journey."

As such, the work of a teacher far transcends beyond the pale of content-and-visual preparation. We must be psychologically adept with the nature of our students. So by our adequate grasp of their 'personality' and 'context' through paternal relationship, we will be able to create bridges towards their life and thus makes our lesson easier to sink into them.


REFERENCE:

• Lee Gutkind, "What I Didn't Know: True Stories of Becoming a Teacher" p.12]