Andrew James Shaw
EXCERPTS FROM TEACHING STRATEGIES STRAIGHT FROM THE HEART
Here are some excerpts from the eBook Teaching Strategies Straight from the Heart as a way to offer practical suggestions and to pay tribute to exemplary educators who have truly taught from the heart.
Getting students to want to work for you
"After greeting your students individually as they enter the classroom, once the bell rings one effective way to begin each class is to say 'Take out your notebook, turn to your Monthly Self-Evaluation and fill it in.' Doing this as the first thing in every class helps you in several ways. First, it gets the students’ attention and moves them from talking to each other to doing an individual action that they are to do quietly. Secondly, it allows you to see which students have not brought their notebook or a pen to class, and you can assist them to get paper and a pen for the remaining activities to come in the class. Thirdly, it helps set a positive tone and to create a sense of order and work ethic to each class. If a student or students continue to talk during the time that they are supposed to be filling in their Self-Evaluation, you can say, 'It’s not time to talk now, it’s time to quietly fill in your Self-Evaluation and then we’ll get started with today’s work.'
Other keys to getting your students to want to work for you are to praise the class as a whole when they work well and stay on task and to use Non-Confrontational Language when they start to get off the task at hand. Effective statements you can use to deal with students who start to talk or who are just not doing what they have been instructed to do include:
A) 'It’s time to get to work.'
B) 'Let’s get back what we’re supposed to be working on.'
C) 'Is there a problem?' or 'What is the problem?' Never 'What is your problem?'
Making sure to use non-confrontational language will help you avoid escalating confrontations with individuals in front of the entire class, which can end badly because students are trying to save in front of their peers and may say things in the heat of the moment that they don’t really mean, but often result in their being sent to the office to see an administrator" (Teaching Strategies Straight from the Heart, p. 29-30).
As the end of the school year draws closer, try using these tips to get and keep your students motivated and working hard as they move toward gaining their credits.
Champion of champions: Dr. Andy Anderson
​"As the years have passed in my teaching career, I have gained a great deal of knowledge about how to handle the job better through the graduate and post-graduate courses I took through the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education of The University of Toronto (OISE-UT). One of my professors at OISE-UT was Dr. Andy Anderson, who really taught from the heart. His educational philosophy could be summed up in the words 'Every child is a champion.' My extension of Andy’s philosophy is that as teachers, one of our most important roles is to champion the champions in our classes, so that they can feel motivated to learn and grow to reach their full potential. I was looking forward to working on my thesis at OISE-UT with Andy – I had met him when he was my Health professor in the B.Ed. program at The University of Western Ontario – but unfortunately he passed away as a result of a brain tumour. I often think about the ways he taught from the heart and how much he inspired me and many other teachers to be champions of champions" (Teaching Strategies Straight from the Heart, p. 45).
I am hopeful that all teachers will take advantage of opportunities to be champions for their students throughout the semester.
Inspiring future teachers: Mr. Ian Cryer
"At the School Within a College (SWAC) graduation, I spoke about how proud I was of all the SWAC Graduates for hanging in there and achieving their goal of attaining a high school diploma. I also emphasized how Lambton College can help make life better for a person and their family – my Mom worked at Lambton College and Dad was a graduate, which helped him get a promotion at work and create a better life for our family, and now I am fortunate to be able to benefit from working there, too. I continued by stating my love for the learning environment at Lambton College and my hope that some of that love of learning had rubbed off on this year’s SWAC students like it rubbed off on me from my Grade 7 and 8 teacher Mr. Ian Cryer, who I had been seated next to and been catching up with throughout the Graduation Banquet. I thanked him for his ongoing support of the SWAC Program in his new role as a Board Trustee. That night, Mr. Cryer (also a former Federation President) told me that 38 of his former students are now teachers – and those are just the ones that he knows of – so his overall influence in education has been huge" (Teaching Strategies Straight from the Heart, p. 7).
If you have had a "teach from the heart" teacher like Mr. Cryer who inspired you to follow the same path, please let me know about it by clicking on the "Contact" page (at top right) to send me the details.