Teacher Feature...
Teaching: An Awesome Responsibility
by Bill Page
I make decisions in my classroom
all of them
each moment
each day,
every day
By these decisions, I make my lessons
exciting, inviting,
stimulating, boring,
confusing, difficult, or
effective, and appropriate.
My decisions determine the classroom climate,
the atmosphere, the aura,
the ambiance or the mood, and
conditions conducive to learning
I am in charge; I am responsible,
I can create anxiety,
hesitancy, uncertainty; or
satisfaction, happiness,
exhilaration and anticipation
My classroom presentation can be,
interesting, boring,
monotonous, dynamic
tedious, humorous,
enthusiastic, or dull
My decisions, my power, my actions, my responses and
my failure to decide, to act or to respond makes my lessons
worthwhile, memorable,
worthless, harmful,
helpful, useful
valuable, and impressive
As teacher, I control kids' lives for a period of time
I can affect their attitude
their feelings, and their emotions,
their desires, interest,
attention, and aspirations
My decisions make their lives better or worse
for the moment,
for a little while
for future learning and perhaps
for time to come.
I remember times when I myself as a student, felt
angry, upset,
embarrassed, alone,
helpless, inadequate,
resentful, and troubled.
I still harbor some of the frustration,
resentment, and pain from those times; but
there is nothing I can do about my pain.
I can also feel the hurt and frustration in some of my students, and,
I can do something about their pain
I can decide at any given moment
to smile or to frown,
to give an "F" or to give a second chance,
to be autocratic or to be democratic,
to be an uncaring and authoritarian,
to be caring and empathetic.
My responsibility is to help my students
to develop positive attitudes,
to learn to be confident and competent,
to become knowledgeable,
to become productive and independent
to become world class citizens.
Making teaching decisions is an awesome responsibility
And the decisions are all mine.
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