Inspirational teaching · Wed Mar 29, 20:41 by Eleri Straker
Inspirational teachers are not a breed apart. They’re just like the rest of us. Teachers who sometimes get it right. And when we do, we inspire the students. We inspire them to learn. And that’s our job.
We can probably all remember a teacher from our own school days. Not the horrible, sarcastic, frightening monsters that we all knew and hated, but the others. They might not have been the ‘best’ teachers, they might not even have been the ones with the glittering degrees. They were the ones who got on with the job. The one of shaping young minds and showing them that there was more to life than what was immediately visible. I always remember my Latin master (not the best of teachers, as his love of writing poetry overshadowed his desire to enlighten the next generation about Caesar’s Gallic wars – which come to think about it might not have been a bad thing) telling his class (all four of us) that ‘to educate’ came from the Latin ex duco, meaning ‘I lead out’. This stuck with me. Teaching is about showing the way. Drawing the knowledge from the students. Socrates understood this. That’s what the question and answer sessions that most teachers use is about. Ask the question. Get the student to work out what the ‘right’ answer is. Simple really.
The classroom is not a showcase for a teacher’s skills, neither should it be a battlefield (even though on bad days it may feel like it). It’s a place of learning, where we, the teachers, have the incredible power to manipulate the minds of the young. We have the freedom (despite the attempts of successive governments!) to shape the minds of our students any way we like. We can choose either to instruct, or to educate. The first requires knowledge. The latter requires considerably more.
