Let
my teaching fall like rain
and my words descend like dew,
like showers on new grass,
like abundant rain on tender plants
and my words descend like dew,
like showers on new grass,
like abundant rain on tender plants
Deuteronomy 32:2 (NIV)
Prayer and Meditation
As the new school year begins, Lord, gift me with the words
and actions to refresh my students, allowing them to grow both academically and
in their love for you. Let me never thunder down on them with stormy words and
blustery exasperation. Let me never
forget their minds are sensitive and their feelings delicate. They are like the new grass and the tender
seedling. Help me always to nourish them
with patience, gentleness, and sensitivity. Lord, I can do nothing without you for I am
nothing without you.
Actions of Prayerful
Teaching
Infuse fun into
learning. Learning is easier if
fun is embedded in the process.
- Collect cartoons and integrate one or two a day as they relate to the current subject matter.
- Embed short, silly videos into the subject matter and relate them to the lesson.
- Warn your students if something is going to be “boring.” Allow them to have a one minute “moan and groan” session before you begin the lesson. Join them in the moan and groan.
- Use games for learning. Ask students to invent games and create the questions and answers that go with the games. Problem-solution games, where there is not just one right answer, raise students to higher learning levels.
- Incorporate learning activities that allow for various kinds of groupings from paired learning to small groupings. Take advantage of the fact that students are social.
- Plan activities that allow students to move, rather than demand they sit-in-place for extended periods of time. Students are not glued down.
Show your joy often
and wholeheartedly.
- Keep pictures of family and/or friends on your desk so students know you do have life outside of the classroom and that your life outside the classroom brings you joy.
- Give students choices so they can take ownership of their learning. These choices should result in creations or artifacts students can post in the classroom or on the school or classroom Web site to remind them and others of their success. Ask students for ideas you can incorporate before you give out your choice list. Choices are not “anything goes.” They still need to meet the standards. Students need to be made aware of and understand the meaning of standard before they can suggest choices
Make your students’
day beginning as they enter the classroom.
- Smile and greet students by name as they enter your classroom.
- Connect with students who had difficulty the day before with either academic work or acceptable classroom behavioral. This is not the time to be critical or refer to the problems of yesterday. It is time to show, by your actions, that it is “move-on” time.
- Warmly greet the shy, quiet, and socially awkward students. Because they do not demand attention, they can easily fall by the wayside during a busy teacher’s day.
- Write students short, positive notes and tape them on their desks or lay them inside their desks so they find them the next time they sit down. Be sure to use fun and fancy stationary.
Care and cheer for
your students. Sometimes we get so entrenched
in teaching to the standards and the standardized tests, we forget each child
possesses a heart and a soul.
- Compile a list of caring and cheering statements. Keep growing the list. It is easy to surpass 100+ statements. Keep it in handy so you can glance at it when your mind grows weary.
- Personalize your statements rather than issuing tired refrains such as, “Good job,” “I’m proud of you,” “Good work.” Examples of caring and cheering statements that can make a difference include: You can be very proud of…. You impressed everyone when you…. I know this is difficult, but you are…. You are making progress. Yesterday/Last week….
Laugh with your
students. So many students are
carrying the burdens of anxiety, stress, and sadness. Though we want to be aware of these burdens
and help alleviate them, we cannot be aware of everything that swirls and
twirls in the minds and lives of our students.
These burdens are all forgotten when one is laughing.
- Ask students to bring in jokes and sign their names to them. After approving the jokes, put them in a box. When the time “feels” right, pull one out of the box and have the student who submitted it share it with the class.
- Laugh out loud when you make a mistake.
Challenge of the Week
Begin a list of caring and cheering statements. Add five each day so by the end of the week you have 25 personalized statements to use throughout the year.
God Bless and Prayerful Teaching,
Elizabeth A. Wink
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