3709. How to Be an Authority in Class?

 We well may be finishing one more school year – if you are for example a committed teacher, like most of you are. And we want our dear students would learn a lot, as well as they would be happy. 

I was wondering what an ideal teacher should be like. One of the main premises is he or she must be an authority in class. Are you one? Am I one? I guess an authority teacher is the one who achieves their students would actually learn. 

I don’t mean those teachers ought to be like a sheer guard in front of a gang of convicts. So let me show you what I’ve seen in some classrooms, and which accounts for being a real authority. 

You know, that teacher must treat his or her students in an exquisite way. I mean, they should respect those students in class – I’ve seen it and I’m now thinking of a teacher I had at high school who was an authentic authority – he treated his students – us! – in a tactful way – he never humiliated a kid at all in class. And when he met us out of the school after classes he told us interesting and fun things which were absolutely good for us! 

He passed away like one month ago and I can assure you I owe him a great deal – he must be in heaven. And he smiled in class and worried about each of us. Amazing. 

He also dressed up somehow just for his students – he showed up in class elegant yet normal, you understand what I mean? He taught us things worth for all of our lives. 

If the teacher fights to be better himself, and tries and improves every day, well, he will set a nice example to his pupils. You respect such a person, and you pay attention to what he says in class, and you obey what he nicely sets, like homework for instance. 

I teach English and am not a native speaker. I’ve noted that if what you assign your students as homework, on your own you also fight to fulfill, your students eventually will follow what you say, or what you assign as homework. 

If I myself struggle to learn English, and I take it up seriously, well, our students will likely follow our directions. 

Jutta Burggraf put that all obedience crisis is to be preceded by an authority crisis. If a teacher assigns such and such work to be done at home, first and in some way he has to also do it himself, or something similar and adapted to his own learning and growing – if he insists like, Okay you students have to read books to learn English, or even, You may reread the book we’ve read this year, over the summer; well, is he going to do the same he sets in class, or something parallel? If affirmative, believe me, he or she have begun to be true leaders. Have a nice day.