1: Respect and Your Role (The Good Teacher Series Begins!)

In the spirit of youthful ambition, my goal here is for us to become good teachers.  I know we’re heading into thin atmosphere as our very Lord questioned such a title (Mark 10:17-18), but I also know that, as His beloved children, we are to be imitators of God, and we look to the Author and Perfector of our faith, the only truly Good Teacher.  He loves our students and will help us love them better. 

A sensible starting point is the famous proverb: “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.”  Much of what can be said about good teaching will relate in some fashion to this gatekeeper.  Rather than treat it at length, we’ll just take a few bits of wisdom from it now and return to it as we proceed in coming lessons. 

A necessary precondition for learning is respect, honor.  The line of respect runs down from administrators to the teachers and then students, from the teachers up to administrators and down to students, from students up to their teachers and administrators. 

For students, that respect is partly assumed and partly earned by the teacher. It is directly related to school-wide discipline, largely dependent on classroom teacher-student interaction, and founded upon family instruction.  None of these spheres will ever be perfect, so often one aspect in better order will help correct another aspect in disorder (i.e. a kind, well-governed student may not take advantage of a weak, ill-prepared teacher; a strong school and classroom can help supplement what may be missing at home; etc.).  That respect is not “servile” or timid (I Tim. 1:7) but is a noble aspiration to have a good standing and praiseworthy success before the eyes of those they esteem (the teacher, in our case). 

Leaving the school’s and parents’ responsibilities out for now, we focus entirely on the teacher and the student.  How does a good teacher encourage godly respect in her classroom? 

First, the teacher must model respect for other people to the students.  The “other people” chiefly consist of the administration, faculty, staff, students and their families.  Respect means treating others kindly, patiently, and with dignity…even when they don’t seem to deserve that dignity.  The teacher should always be positive, poised, and collected. Greet your students cheerfully at the door every day.  Know them and call them by name, and show genuine delight that they have joined you.  Your first curriculum is breathing before you; love them; respect them.  Show respect for your faculty and staff by deferring to them whenever reasonable, openly admiring them when appropriate, and covering them when needed (this may call for a profession visit, of course). 

Second, the teacher must respect his subject and position.  Were you assigned a subject to teach which you don’t have a natural zeal for (a common plight in small schools)?  Good, you have the advantage of knowing what the student feels. Dive in! soak in it; stay in it.  You cannot give what you do not have, and, unless you enjoy pulling teeth all year long, show that the subject before you and them is one to engage in whole-heartedly.  Most students will catch your delight…or will catch your detachment.  More than likely, you will have had time to prepare for a course you like.  Good, you have the advantages of your natural curiosity.  Don’t lean on that strength to the exclusion of all else, though; plan well; use your time wisely.  Students can sniff a charlatan or a poorly prepared teacher "winging it" miles away, and both discourage respect, so steer clear of the short-cuts and love your subject richly before, during, and after your time in front of your students.  Love your calling and your subject; show due respect. 

Sometimes, an exasperated teacher is tempted to list the woes of teaching or just off-handedly make a sarcastic remark about salaries or administrative decisions.  Whether what’s said is true or not, never even hint to your students that your school, position, or career track lacks the resources or honor that you think you deserve.  This is immature, unprofessional, and unfair; your students are not your audience as peers, principals, or boards; they are your charges, your trust to steward, and you are charged to teach them.  Knowing which subjects belong with which people, and how much detail should be shared, is crucial for developing and maintaining respect. 

Now, did you notice that I put the social aspects of teaching (student oriented) ahead of the subject (course related)?  That’s because, if a teacher is going to fail, it is usually because he did not understand how to handle the actual classroom of students before him, rarely because he could not understand the material.  Teaching failures often stem from a misunderstanding of the responsibility of the teacher.  Often, this misunderstanding can be traced to this common assumption: the teacher’s responsibility is to present information on a given subject, assign work, and score it.  The student’s role is to honor the teacher and follow the course the teacher sets.  The problem with this perspective is that, though it mentions aspects of teaching, it gives little direction to the teacher to judge what makes for good teaching.  Many awful teachers relay information about a subject, assign work, and submit grades.  That doesn’t define good teaching.

Good teaching engages students, passable teaching acknowledges students, and poor teaching ignores students.  While the teacher cannot and should not be made responsible for every student’s performance (the student is not a passive object awaiting modern behavioral training…and half of modern educational theories burst before our eyes), it is also true that the teacher needs to “know the frame” (Ps. 103:13-14, Eph. 6:4) of a student and “add sweetness” (Prov. 16:21) to learning to be on the path to truly good teaching. 

Said another way, the teacher’s primary responsibility in the classroom is setting and maintaining a healthy atmosphere of lively, respectful engagement.   That atmosphere is created by good planning, clear lessons, active class engagement, and diligent follow-through…the natural consequents of a teacher honoring the students and the assigned subject.  A teacher who cannot achieve and maintain a good learning atmosphere—regardless of his reasons, subject knowledge, or intentions—is failing in the classroom.  A teacher who keeps a good learning atmosphere is succeeding in the classroom. 

Caveats: it’s good to remember that no one succeeds perfectly at all times (and your administrator will, no doubt, visit at the worst moment to the most challenging class), no single classroom’s atmosphere can or should be perfectly replicated by another teacher (we apply our gifts and strengths to our class, and those will vary by person and by class needs), and every teacher has room to improve.  These pages are intended to provide perspective and specific steps and strategies to meet with greater success.  And don’t forget that we’ve left out the school and family environments for our purposes; issues in either sphere make classroom management much more challenging. 

Hopefully we are a little nearer than when we began in identifying our central aim as teachers (setting and maintaining a healthy atmosphere of lively, respectful engagement), so we can consider practical steps to establishing or improving an engaged, orderly classroom in coming chapters. 

Reflection:

List ways that you can honor faculty, staff, and the institution you work in.

• Faculty:

• Staff: 

• St. Abe's:

List ways that you can honor your students.





List ways that you can honor your subject. 






Consider a favorite class you have taken in the past.  Do any of the items you listed above match well with the course you took?  Do any items occur to you now to add to either list?

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·      What did some of your favorite teachers do to engage you and others in learning?  What can you borrow or apply from their example to make your class more engaging?   




      What do you have from your background, personality, or experience might prove helpful in engaging students this year? 



      Let's say a student speaks out of turn on the first day of class.  What will you do at the first instance?  Second?  Third?  



      Let's say a student is responding in a way clearly designed to gain attention rather than improve engagement in the subject before you.  What will you do?  


     How do you intend to handle late arrivals and bathroom breaks?  

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