What every teacher must know By Madame Olieh

By Madame Olieh

In my years of teaching, I have met different children with various needs. I have also met parents with their personal problems and challenges.

My duty as a teacher does not only end with imparting knowledge but also in understanding the children I teach, the parents of these children, the different religion of these children, their culture, background and a lot more.

Wow!!! Teaching is not just paper and pen if you want to stand out as a great teacher.

An outstanding teacher goes the extra mile and this beyond just paper and pen to properly nurture the mind and abilities of the child. This is called tutoring.

When you have knowledge about your student and you make up your mind to love the child no matter his/her background, culture or religion, then I can say you are ready as a teacher.

I would further use my martial experience in explaining my point. I am Yoruba and I married to an Igbo man. We are from two different worlds culturally.

The early years of marriage was not easy because we needed to understand each other’s culture plus our family differences.

I tell you it was not easy at all but because we had LOVE that brought us together and we committed ourselves to it, we were able to make it work.

So as a teacher the first thing is to have an open mind to ‘Love’ that child no matter the problem he or she has or exhibits.

With that you don’t only win the child, but you make the child love learning and create a desire to always want to be in school.

Even the challenges from home would not be able to kill the child’s zeal and morale because he/she would always look forward to school and is happy just because of YOU.

Teaching can mould a destiny but “bad” teaching can also destroy it.

I tell people every time I train them never to go into teaching because they need a job.

Teach because you want to mould a life.

Recently I met a child with challenges from home. The parents are financially okay but the child lacks attention and Love.

This child survived the challenging period because a teacher showed Love. While some children missed it because a teacher misled them.

Note, a teacher is a role model who has huge impact on the pupils sometimes stronger than that of their parents.

As a parent and teacher, I sometimes threaten my kids that I will call their teacher, just to make them do their chores or homework.

But the role of a teacher and that of the parents is different.

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