Just like everyone, your students will have unique qualities that make up their individuality. These qualities are developed from the environment in which the student is raised as well as inheritance through the family.
Each student has something unique to be offered to the classroom and to the world. In the midst of growing up, sometimes these special qualities often get clouded by the need to be accepted and to follow the crowd. The student succumbs to the pressure from peers and squelches all of the things that make him/her unique in order to fit in. This is where the teacher can step in and encourage students to be themselves by incorporating activities in the classroom that foster self esteem.
1. Recognize the Student’s Strengths in the Classroom
Find something the student excels at and emphasize this strength. For instance if the student is good at one aspect of a classroom lesson, recognize the student for this strength by having him/her assist other students who are struggling with this aspect of the lesson. Many times you will find that if students are recognized for strength, they will strive to achieve in other areas.
2. Be Specific with Compliments
Telling the class that you are proud of them does not convey to the students exactly why you are proud of them. Praise students individually and let them know exactly what it was that they did that made you proud of them. They are more likely to repeat the achievement and be more attentive in the classroom environment.
3. Display Your Student’s Work
Students look for approval and recognition from adults and displaying their work is a great way to communicate praise, as well as provide the student with the advantage of receiving praise from others. The student will also be more likely to turn out their best work if they know that others will be viewing their achievement.
4. Show Respect for the Student
Your students will come from a wide variety of backgrounds and in some cases; the student’s trust in adults has been breached. This can occur through abuse or neglect in the home environment, belittling from another teacher, a crime committed against the student, and many other unfortunate related incidents.
Establishing a trusting relationship with some students takes time and patience and is not an easy task. Consistently show your respect for these students, persevere, and most likely the student will eventually begin to trust you.
Remember if your students trust you, they will be more relaxed in the classroom environment and more receptive to learning.
5. Attend Your Student’s Extracurricular Activities
Get to know what your students do when they are not in your classroom. Attending their extracurricular activities shows your support for them as a whole person and not just what they do in your classroom. It shows that your concern extends beyond how they achieve in your classroom. In addition, some of your students do not have any support in the home environment, which means most likely no one is attending their extracurricular activities. Seeing a teacher there will mean the world to your students, boost their self-esteem as well as their academic achievement in the classroom.
By: J.C. Sprenger
Posts Tagged ‘Individuality’
Five Ways to Build Student’s Self-Esteem
March 12th, 201014 Graduation Quotes For That Special Day
February 23rd, 2010
A graduation, whether it be from high school or from college, is a momentous occasion in a person’s life and graduation quotes are a wonderful way to reflect on how special graduation day really is. These 14 graduation quotes do a great job of capturing what every graduate should understand and remember on this memorable day.
1. “There is a good reason they call these ceremonies commencement exercises. Graduation is not the end; it’s the beginning.” ~ Orrin Hatch
2. “You are educated. Your certification is in your degree. You may think of it as the ticket to the good life. Let me ask you to think of an alternative. Think of it as your ticket to change the world.” ~ Tom Brokaw
3. “The things taught in schools and colleges are not an education, but the means of education.” ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson
4. “A graduation ceremony is an event where the commencement speaker tells thousands of students dressed in identical caps and gowns that ‘individuality’ is the key to success.” ~ Robert Orben
5. “At commencement you wear your square-shaped mortarboards. My hope is that from time to time you will let your minds be bold, and wear sombreros.” ~ Paul Freund
6. “During my second year of nursing school our professor gave us a quiz. I breezed through the questions until I read the last one: “What is the first name of the woman who cleans the school?” Surely this was a joke. I had seen the cleaning woman several times, but how would I know her name I handed in my paper, leaving the last question blank. Before the class ended, one student asked if the last question would count toward our grade. “Absolutely,” the professor said. “In your careers, you will meet many people. All are significant. They deserve your attention and care, even if all you do is smile and say hello. “I’ve never forgotten that lesson. I also learned her name was Dorothy.” ~ Joann C. Jones
7. “It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it.” ~ Aristotle
8. “Be careful to leave your sons well instructed rather than rich, for the hopes of the instructed are better than the wealth of the ignorant.” ~ Epictetus
9. “The supreme end of education is expert discernment in all things — the power to tell the good from the bad, the genuine from the counterfeit, and to prefer the good and the genuine to the bad and the counterfeit.” ~ Samuel Johnson
10. “The man who graduates today and stops learning tomorrow is uneducated the day after.” ~ Newton D. Baker
11. “Graduation is only a concept. In real life every day you graduate. Graduation is a process that goes on until the last day of your life. If you can grasp that, you’ll make a difference.” ~ Arie Pencovici
12. “The advantage of a classical education is that it enables you to despise the wealth that it prevents you from achieving.” ~ Russell Green
13. “If you think education is expensive, try ignorance!” ~ Andy McIntyre
14. “I have never let my schooling interfere with my education.” ~ Mark Twain
Long and short, funny and emotional — some of the most inspiring and thought-provoking words have been spoken at graduations. These graduation quotes remind us that being educated means more than learning what was in the textbooks and that, even after graduation, one’s education really never ends.
By: Noel Jameson
