Many of my clients tell me I need to work for the Department of Education to encourage people to become teachers. Since I am so passionate about my teaching and I think it is the best job ever, they think I can convince any person, even those who do not like children, to shift to education.
I have my doubts about convincing any person, but I am sure that being an educator is the best job ever.
When I work with my clients on Needs and we get to the stage where they understand the need to make a difference in the world, I understand again why a teacher fulfills this need every time he or she goes to work.
Unfortunately, many people think that teachers are a conduit of knowledge. They take knowledge from one side, chew it and hand it to the students in an easy way. Teachers, on the other hand, see their work in a more purposeful way. To them, teaching is a facilitation of change. Teachers are there to help their students grow and evolve. They are there to help their students design their identity by learning.
For a teacher, teaching another grammar point or another math concept is nowhere near the excitement and fulfilment of teaching to develop a positive attitude or good habits. You see, it is hard to make a difference in the world by teaching multiplication, but easy by teaching ways to learn. It is hard to make a difference by teaching to read, but easy when the reading is about friendship. For teachers, knowledge is only a tool to teach attitude.
We learn math not to be able to go to the supermarket, but to be able to stimulate our thinking. We learn to read not to be able to sign a document but to be able to read about love, excitement, motivation and characters. We learn science not to be able to get great grades but to appreciate the world around us.
Teachers have that in mind every time they get up in the morning and pack their lunch to go to work. Their students’ well-being and education is far more important to them than the grades on their report card.
I am not my kids’ teacher at school and I told them from the first day they went to school, “I wish you a teacher that recognizes his or her profession as a mission. I wish you a teacher who will help you carve who you are and will stay in your memory as someone who meant a lot to you and was there to love you and help you be the person you wanted to be”.
I consider myself lucky, because I have been touched by many teachers, especially when I studied special education. The years when I was deeply inspired by those who define edcuation as a tool to change the world.
Remember that your child’s education is much more than the grades on his or her report card and look for those teachers who are there with the vision of touching your child forever.
By: Ronit Baras
Posts Tagged ‘Positive Attitude’
To Teach is to Touch a Life Forever
January 29th, 2010Why is Early Intervention of Great Importance?
December 14th, 2009
It’s every parent’s worst nightmare to find out that your child has been born with a disability. Feelings of fear, anxiety, depression, isolation and helplessness often surround new parents who don’t know where to go or who to turn to.
Early intervention services are designed to quell the anxiety by providing resources and solutions to help you and your baby grow. With an early intervention, the child will foster with a large support structure and will have the best chance at normal development through specially-focused programs, while you get the emotional support you need to make it through the first few difficult years.
There are three main reasons to consider such a program. First, early intervention services enhance child development. Intervention research suggests that the rate of human learning and development is most rapid in the first five years of life.
Early skill development is crucial to laying the groundwork for lifelong education. Secondly, these interventions assist parents and siblings, helping them deal with feelings of stress or helplessness, while learning to maintain a positive attitude.
Families of handicapped children are found to have increased instances of divorce, suicide and domestic abuse, experts say, so an early intercession is critical to managing emotions from the onset. Lastly, early intervention services will increase the child’s developmental and educational gains, increasing his or her eligibility for future employment and self-sufficiency.
Some parents wonder, “Is early intervention really effective?” After nearly 50 years of research by the Department of Education, there is substantial evidence that early intervention services increase the developmental and educational gains for the child. Additionally, children with early interventions need less services later in life, have less instances of failing a grade and offer more long-term benefits for society.
The parents who go through the intervention program are also in a healthier, happier place. One intervention study indicated that disadvantaged and gifted preschoolers benefited from an early intervention program all the way through to age 19. These benefits included more dedication to school, more college attendees, higher reading/arithmetic/language test scores, fewer instances of delinquent behavior and a 50% reduction in the need for special education services in high school (Berrueta-Clement, Schweinhart, Barnett, Epstein, Weikart, 1984).
If you’re wondering what early intervention professionals can offer you, then check the National Dissemination Center for Children with Disabilities site for more details. Generally, intervention services may include family intervention training/counseling, home visits, special instruction/speech therapy, hearing impairment services, occupational therapy, physical therapy, psychological evaluation/therapy, medical services (if necessary), social work services, assistive living technology, transportation, nutrition services and service coordination.
By: Mike Selvon
