Anndrea Scroggins
Sit down. Listen. They aren’t listening; they aren’t understanding. Will they ever get it?
Most teachers think these thoughts at some point during their career. We aren’t guaranteed 100% focus or understanding when we walk into the classroom. Every morning we come knowing what we want to say. When class ends, it sometimes feels like nothing got through. There can be long stretches of time when nothing makes sense and our explanations only seem to make things more complicated.
Overseas, my teaching partner and I once spent a whole day cracking down on the difference between “left” and “right” in the English language. Sometimes we sped through the whole lesson, other days we had to listen to the same sentences over and over again. It can be tiring, especially since English is so natural to us, but think back to when you were learning to read, or ride a bike, or even if you’ve ever tried learning another language yourself.
Those things were hard. When your teacher helped you through your first book, they could read every word on every page faster than you could begin to put together the first syllable. But they were patient, and now you’re reading this. Removing the training wheels is scary. Learning another language was nerve-wracking, especially if your teacher couldn’t speak your own language.
Patience is incredibly important in the classroom. It alleviates the pressure teachers can sometimes push on their students. Teachers are more relaxed when things go wrong. Sometimes we can be so stressed and anxious about working through all of our material that we skip over what people don’t understand and fail to see the person sitting in front of us. Hopefully, patience slow us down and open our eyes so we can help people truly learn instead of simply pass the test.
