3668. Again, How Flexible Are You as a Teacher?

 We may be about to start a new school year, at least at the north earth hemisphere. And you may be a hectic teacher. And you have to plan that school year by following the premises given by the school plus the points perhaps the school does not demand from you but you think they are important for your daily teaching. 

That is what I’m doing. And maybe you’re a committed teacher who wants to get hold of every problem that might turn up in your pathway and your students’ one. Ok, great. 

All the same I would tell you not to specify every mishap which could pop up during that school year. Even more if you tend to be a perfectionist teacher. 

You will face any trouble when it occurs. Even you may have some transcendent view of life and may trust in God and his loving providence. Do not get everything tied and super tied up. Also because we may not know the students we’ll have soon. 

Each and every one of them is unique and can provide their richness to the lessons. We work with people, with persons, we do not manufacture screws. Such is life, life is rich about nuances. 

We cannot foresee all when now planning the new school year. 

We need to be responsible, yet we can’t get choked with all that planning. Nor can we dominate all. When something contradictory and contrary happens to us perhaps the first thing we have to do is to accept it. Learn how to enjoy teaching. In spite of all that may happen. 

Let us not set a lot of rules for our students, although they need some. And let us not insist too much on those rules. Students also lead themselves by reason and moral sense. 

Let us be flexible: if we are tremendous teachers who do not spare any lesson, maybe once we may take our students out to the playground or to the school surroundings – when I taught kids some twenty-something years ago in another south town of Spain (Jaén), the school was near a nice forest. Or perhaps we can once stop the regular teaching and hold a nice and educative conversation with our dear students, out of the program. Some of these ideas were taken from Professor Jutta Burggraf (1952-2010). Have a nice day and nice school year.

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