Knowledge alone does not a good teacher make.

Being a good, if not excellent teacher, is one of the most important things in life. In the first few posts I wrote, I have already said that everybody, especially those who are parents, is a teacher. A parent is the first teacher to his/her children.

Some parents fail because they never know how to be a good teacher to their children.
"I always tell them not to do it. They never listen," the parent would exclaim.
Of course they never listen because the parent was not teaching. The parent was demanding that the children obey. Who wants to obey demands? Would you? Certainly not! Nobody would willingly obey demands. Under threat, the children would put on a show of obedience. It is only that, nothing more.

Teaching has not taken place until something has been learned. You may have the child write down the knowledge, copy the mathematical examples but unless the child can understand the knowledge and is able to apply it, the child has not learned. Thus, if child has not understood the usage of past tense verbs, know that their forms change with difference tenses and applied them in sentence making, he could not be said to have learned it well. Similarly, a child who can only copy mathematical examples but did not understand how it is worked out, so cannot use the knowledge to solve mathematical problems, cannot be considered having learned what was taught. How we get the children to understand the knowledge well enough so as to apply it in usage is the technique or method.

Similarly, a child who does not understand why he cannot draw on the walls of his home when everyone has been buying him crayons and pencils, encouraging him/her to draw on pieces of paper. The child needs explanations to understand why that is not allowed. Not: Don't you dare draw on my wall! The voice is threatening. But when the threat is no longer around, and there is no more paper, why not draw on the available wall?

Of course, teaching through explanation can be long and tedious but children need to understand.

Some think that knowledge is all it takes to be a good teacher. If that is so, many parents would fail as most of them do not gather sufficient knowledge of children before childbirth. It is not so much the knowledge but the love and the desire to teach well.

Knowledge where children are concerned is actually a lot of common sense. Then again, common sense is not common at times. No fear for we ourselves have been children and when in doubt there are always the elders in the family or the community to turn to for the few times when we are in doubt. So long as parents bring up their children with love and patience, listening to them and understanding their needs, making sure they are always safe and teaching them by talking politely and teaching about the world with the right language usage, everything ought to turn out fine.

Remember that our children learn through imitation. Shout and scream at them most of the time and that is what they would do to us. Use vulgar language often and that would be what they do too. Spit and throw rubbish anywhere we like and that would be exactly what they would imitate. Ride the motorcycle around without any respect for the law and order and that would be how the children regard the law. Be cruel, vicious and selfish and those are the things they would learn. We teach them that! How can we expect anything different? What do we expect?

Here, let me digress a little., I remember how much I wanted to be successful in love and marriage in my early twenties. I read everything there was about love, successful marriage and child upbringing. Seeing me armed with all that knowledge, God played a trick on me with two lost loves and no prospect of ever getting married even at the age of twenty-eight when almost every friend of mine had already settled down to family life. Fortunately, God relented by sending me my wife when I was almost thirty. And my first child came when I was forty years old. Well, sometimes things just do not go the way you want.

Okay, back to being a good teacher. In teaching, the most important thing is technique. You may have the knowledge or the know-how but if your teaching technique is ineffective, the children would not be able to understand, remember and apply what is taught. Yes, whatever technique is used, it must be EFFECTIVE.

In my thirty-six years of teaching English, art and craft, and gymnastics, I found that the right technique or method for the type of children and the subject makes the difference.

You see, there are so many individuals in our world. Our approach towards them, be they adults or children must suit them to be effective.

There are the slower ones who find comprehension of things a little slow. With them, we have to be slower. There has to be a lot of repetitions and examples before understanding sinks in. There must be patience. Since such children are slow, learning is a bit tedious. To avoid the mind from slipping off elsewhere, there must be some short amusing or interesting digressions. Concentration for some people may be short.

Yes, concentration on serious matters may be short. That is one reason, when faced with such children, I sometimes throw away the syllabus; something the principle would never agree. I had to tell the principle that I would be responsible for my own action if any inspector were to appear. After all, we are always told to go from the known to the unknown which is logical and correct. How can teachers be expected to teach children to write complex sentences when they cannot even write correct simple sentences.

In different classes and subjects, we should use different appropraite methods. In literature, for example, I use a lot of actions, movements and drama to illustrate the story.Too many explanations with meanings can interfere with the flow of the story.

Well, there are just too many types of children and methods to go into; it would take one whole book to go into them thoroughly.

To acquire knowledge is fairly easy. How do we acquire these technigues or methods? To have effective techniques or methods is important as it would be the difference between a lousy, average, good or great teacher. To be good at them, we have to be flexible, ever willing to learn and borrow from others, to learn and imitate others, be critical of our own methods and be prepared to change our attitudes and methods where and when suitable. This applies to all teachers, no matter whom or where we teach, be it our own children in our own homes, pupils in a school, workers in our factories or members in our societies and communities.

There are certain methods which we are good at and suitable for certain circumstances or people. However, we have our weaknesses too in certain matters and if we are lucky enough to find someone who have a better method, there is nothing wrong in learning from the person. In fact, I always consider it to my credit that I am not too old to be unable to learn. It also takes a strong character to face criticism and use such criticism to improve where necessary. Do not scold the messenger for sending you knowledge of your faults. Take courage to overcome the faults and, as I have said in a previous post, become an even better person. Yes, change for the better.

I have often told friends that only the dead cannot learn or change for the better. The living is constantly learning and changing, for better or for worse; hopefully for the better, of course.

experiences, knowledge, people, teaching, understanding