3551. Are You (Deeply) Happy in the Classroom?

We are just before a new school year or we are starting it. And we may not know how that school year will develop, and whether we will teach face-to-face or remotely (!). 

Anyway, we may be planning the curriculum or syllabus. I’m working on it. 

You know what? When carrying out that curriculum and trying to think what the most important thing is, I have concluded, very quickly, as if by intuition and not by some deep and heavy and long reasoning, that the most important thing is… that my students should be happy! 

They should be happy while learning. 

I teach adults, but the same may be applicable if you teach kids. Those students should be happy. Also I should be happy. 

When I say happy I mean they should be treated nice by me in the classroom. Only in that way will they learn English, which is what I teach. Otherwise… they would learn less, if anything at all. 

I must treat my students as human persons and with all the dignity they deserve. 

Also if I taught kids I should treat them well, as persons. 

That is absolutely compatible with nice classroom management. Of course it is. 

I have to smile at them my students. Yet not some silly smiling but a clever one: I’m concerned with actual helping my students in their learning and also in their lives, as far as they let me do so. 

When I receive my students in the classroom on the very first day, I have to smile at them. Also because they are there in the classroom because they want to learn. 

Also if I taught kids: I have to be kind and nice with them, which is absolutely compatible with discipline. 

If I was not somewhat comfortable with them in the classroom, I would not be a good teacher – I’m referring to my case. I feel that way and guess that is the correct and right way of teaching in the classroom. --- Anyway, evidently I'm not perfect.

Obviously all that is compatible with remote teaching, if the case – I don’t know if I will teach face-to-face, I hope so anyway. Actually classes proper start in October in our school. 

Summing up, both my students and I should be happy with classes, teaching/learning, homework, when treating those people in the school but out of the classroom, when I have a coffee with them, etcetera. Have a nice week.

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