In my last essay, I did not include love as one of the ideal qualities that teachers of not so ideal students should have. It is not because love is not important. On the contrary, it is ideal for teachers of all sorts of students. The love a teacher has for students is different from erōs – physical and sexual love between a man and a woman; it is agápé – altruistic love for students without any implications.
The love that a teacher has for students compels the teacher to go the extra distance for the student. A Loving teacher would go spend the effort to correct a student when he or she uses vulgarities, cheats or lie. Such disciplinary action is done out of love, for the better good of the student, to shape the values and character of the student. Without such a quality, the student will not be disciplined and will continue in his err; only imparted with content knowledge from the teacher. Hence, love is important for teachers to cultivate the right behaviour in students.
The love that a teacher has for students motivates the teacher to spend more time helping students with their academic subjects. Time is a good measure of love, not money. Money does not buy love or time. When a person loves another, the person spends more time with the other party. Likewise, teachers who love their students would be most willing to help students who are weaker in their studies. The teacher may even force stubborn students to stay in school for extra lessons, remedial or free tuition. The time that a teacher gives to the students is the expression of the teacher’s love; without which, the student is highly likely to continue struggling academically.
In essence, love is a profound quality that has much to be expounded upon. In teachers, it is manifested in tangible ways when the teacher disciplines the rowdy, notorious and vulgar students and when the teacher spends additional time tutoring the students. Love is the quality that drives teachers to inspire and touch lives of students.
I'm so glad I've finally gotten a new phone after 3 years! The old phone was my companion for the A levels - I used it to listen to 98.70 and 98.00fm while I studied; it also accompanied me through my army daze - numerous exercises and through the rain, shine, day and night, forest, camp and the city. However, the old phone is really ancient and it's time for a new mp3 phone to take its place!
Although the new fudge fone is great and I am so glad I got it, the process was a horrible experience. Because the staff at M1 customer service headquarters told me incorrect information, I almost left Paragon in the rain and empty handed. Thankfully, I realised that what the staff said was illogical and I went back to check with another staff. The situation is worse with other M1 branches - their information is grossly incoherent - one staff tells you one thing while another tells you something completely contradictory. Are M1 policies that vague or are their customer service officers unsure of the company's policies? I believe its both. It was a very unpleasant experience signing a new contract with M1. I'm not interested in spoiling my mood further by describing all the incoherent information I received from the Tampines Mall branch, Century Square branch and the headquarters at Paragon. I rather focus on the fact that I'm happy with a new fone that has a camera and most importantly, a radio and mp3 function!
Patience, compassion, understanding and humour – these are the most frequently cited as the qualities of an ideal teacher in my students’ English essays. However, in the real world of less-than-ideal students, these noble qualities may prove to be speculative. One student contended that an ideal teacher must be patient enough to tolerate the misbehaviour of the mischievous student. That would not be of any benefit to the character and moral development of the student would it? In a classroom of rowdy, notorious and vulgar students, I suggest the ideal qualities a teacher must posses are totalitarianism, creativity and charisma.
"Scccold you ah!"
Totalitarianism is the first must-have ideal quality for teachers to handle erroneous students. Such students today would refuse to complete their assignments, daydream during lessons and sprout vulgarities at the tiniest of all issues. In order to coerce these recalcitrant students to do their homework, a teacher should ideally be a tyrant and compel them into complete submission. This way, students would prepare their assignments, listen to or at the very least, try to pay attention during lessons and would be too terrified to sprout any nonsense. Without such a quality, the students would have the audacity to not do as told, miss parts of the required content knowledge and lack in moral character. Thus, it is essential that teachers are totalitarians to enforce the right values and attitudes in rebellious adolescents.
Secondly, teachers should have creativity to capture the attention of less-than-ideal students. Being harsh and tyrant on students is very strenuous; nobody really enjoys terrorising students into obedience all the time. In order to enhance their learning, a teacher should ideally be creative, to invent new methods of teaching, allowing students to have greater participation and to take a proactive approach to learning in a fun and interactive manner. This would be able to captivate the interest of students ever so fond of straying to wonderland. Without being creative, a teacher would have to terrorise them into paying attention or else these students would start chatting, daydreaming, even shouting across the classroom and maybe bellowing obscenities in the presence of the teacher. Hence, a teacher should ideally be creative in presenting bromidic lessons in new fashion to captivate the interest of the students and catalyse their learning.
Finally, teachers of not-so-ideal students should have charisma. Charisma is a real useful trait especially when less-than-ideal students are unmotivated and even reluctant to work for their academic results or future to say the least. A charismatic teacher would be able to inspire students to work hard and turn their aspirations into reality. In addition to igniting the fire and passion for learning in students, charismatic teachers help to touch hearts and mould the character of students by the nurturing role they play: correcting their misbehaviour and being a role model for students to follow. As a result, the student would become diligent in their work and nurtured into responsible adults. Without inspiring teachers, students may remain in their state of under motivation: day dreaming all day, sleeping in class or students may deteriorate in their moral standards: lying, touching members of the same sex or becoming hooligans and liabilities to the state. As such, it is desirable for teachers of non-ideal, under motivated, recalcitrant students to have charisma, to inspire them to be the best they can be.
Irrevocably, to handle the incorrigible students, teachers should be totalitarians, to induce fear and apprehension in them to do their assignments as told and to curtail misbehaviour of the students. Taking a two-pronged approach, teachers should also be creative in presenting their lessons to enhance the learning of the students and at the same time, be charismatic to inspire and shape the hearts and minds of the students.
What is my purpose? What am I doing here? Am I living up to my potential?
These are all questions that we would ask at some point in our lives. All of us seek to form an identity for ourselves, something we know ourselves by. The above questions are commonly known as identity questions and secularist answers can be classified into 3 broad groups. Some people define themselves by what they do, others by what they have and yet some by what others say about them.
People who identify themselves by what they do would like to associate themselves to their job, their ability or their grades. One may introduce himself as Mr James, the accountant. He may also pride himself in being a musician or even a straight ‘A’s smarty pants. As a result, his identity is tied to what he prides himself in doing; the more lucrative the industry is, the more successful he deems himself to be.
People who define themselves by what they have would identify themselves as one with a copious amount of wealth or possess certain assets. One such person may vaunt about his latest Nokia 5300, his brand new luxury Jaguar or his freehold condominium near town. Such a person’s identity is dependant on what he owns and the more he has, the more successful he perceives himself to be.
People who define themselves by what people say about them would describe themselves as popular and seeks for approval and favour from others. One such person would relish being the president of the Students’ Council and may label himself as one who gets all the attention, affection and envy of others. Consequently, his behaviour may change with different groups of friends in order to gain their favour, finds that what people say about him may change and find it extremely difficult to maintain the pseudo images that he portrays.
However, something tells us that we are meant for more. There must be something more than just what we see. How can life merely be about our blood-sucking job, our evanescent possessions or our fleeting popularity?
Thankfully, for us, the bible tells us that what we see is NOT all we get; it tells us that we can be children of God. As children of God, we enjoy 3 basic privileges: God’s grace, blessings from God and God’s favour.
As a child of God, we are recipients of God’s grace. All man has sinned; Romans 3:23 says, “For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.” As a result, we are separated from God. No amount of effort on our part can reunite us with God because of our sin: not good works, our career, our wealth or popularity. To reconcile man to God, Jesus came to be the atonement for our sins. 1 Peter 3:18 tells us, “For Christ died for sins once for all, the righteous for the unrighteous, to bring you to God.” Because of His love for us, Jesus died to pay for the penalty of our sins, that we may be forgiven – this is God’s grace to man.
As a child of God, we enjoy His blessings. Ephesians 1:3 says, “Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in the heavenly realms with every spiritual blessing in Christ.” As the child of God, we enjoy every blessing from God.
Finally, as a child of God, He is pleased with us. Zephaniah 3:17 tells us, “The Lord your God is with you, He is mighty to save. He will take great delight in you, he will quiet you with His love, He will rejoice over you with singing.” As a child of God, we have favour and protection from God!
We may sometimes identify ourselves by what we do, what we have or what people think of us. We may occasionally get lost in the chase for paper qualifications, material possessions or popularity, all of which are transient and temporal. What you see is NOT all you get. Do you want to be a child of God? There is no need to prove yourself by what you do, what you own or by what others say about you. As a child of God, we enjoy the grace and forgiveness from God, the blessings from God and the favour of God. Who are you?
Verse 1: Who am I That the Lord of all the Earth Would care to know my name Would care to feel my hurt Who am I That the bright and morning star Would choose to light the way For my ever wandering heart
Pre-chorus: Not because of who I am But because of what You've done Not because of what I've done But because of who you are
Chorus: I am a flower quickly fading Here today and gone tomorrow A wave tossed in the ocean A vapour in the wind Still You hear me when I'm calling Lord You catch me when I'm falling And you told me who I am I am Yours
Verse 2: Who am I That the eyes that see my sin Would look on me with love And watch me rise again Who am I That the voice that calms the sea Would call out through the rain And calm the storm in me
Acknowledgements: Content has been taken from Pastor Steven's sermon this morning as well as the booklet: What you see is NOT all you get. The song in the video is: "Who am I" by Casting Crowns. If you would like to know more, visit www.meant4more.com
I have stopped trying to convince myself that I don't want to teach. The fact remains that there's a undeniable passion in my heart to teach. However, teaching wouldn't be my first career. Maybe, someday 10 years later, I'll be teaching math and POA. =)
I was told by some students to shave and wear that pair of ugly specs because it looks good. However, I must be out of my mind to get that recruit hair cut. Those my age would most certainly agree with me that shaving no. 1 is a definite no-no. And the frameless specs are here to stay too. =P But, I'll be cutting my hair pretty short coz its cooling and convenient... lol..
Somehow, despite my busy schedule, I managed to squeeze time to catch 3 movies in the last 10 days. First, I watched a lousy cartoon, TMNT, then it was the hilarious Mr. Bean and finally, Meet the Robinsons. Of the 3, my favourite has to be Meet the Robinsons. It was humourous, cute and really meaningful. There were 2 values underscored in the movie that I agree strongly with. The first is the celebration of failure and the second is letting go of the past and to keep moving forward.
As said in the film, failure teaches us more than success does. As such, the Robinsons family celebrated the failure of Lewis and hoped that he learnt from the failure. I believe that is very positive advice for life! Since we all make mistakes, and we learn more from our mistakes, we should not feel disappointed over every failure and stumble and quit as a result. Instead, our perspective should be to celebrate the failure, learn from it and keep moving on!
Also, there may be events in our past that we have no control over that we must simply let go and keep moving forward. As depicted in the cartoon, Lewis was abandoned by his biological mother and he had no control over the situation. Instead of letting the hurt and pain fester and boil within him, he chose to let go and keep moving forward! As a result, he moved on to becoming a highly successful inventor and business owner with a positively affirming attitude!
There may be many failures and challenges that we may stumble upon in life, there may be many weaknesses that we see in ourselves and there may be past events that we have no control over. Instead of letting hurt, shame or regret fester and boil in our hearts, let's let go and keep moving on! =)
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