The Truth About Loving Your Students
There’s more to teaching than the three r’s. A safe classroom is full of love and acceptance.
No Bullying!
Your students need to know what you stand for, and there are times when you have to be tough. You’re not doing anyone a favor to let inappropriate behavior go unaccounted. Our class is a no-bullying zone, and nothing unsettles me more than bullying, be it through a subtle sneer or blatant nasty comment.
We do a lot of lessons about the ignorance of racism, sexism, and discrimination against those of different religious or sexual orientation. My philosophy which I try present is that despite what you may think about an individual’s way of life, it doesn’t justify cruelty. When I send students to the principal’s office, or support suspension, it’s usually for bullying or disrespect. First and foremost, each and every student in my room needs to feel safe and regarded for who they are at this time in their life.
Not all of these suggestions work all the time, and there are days when I question if I really am just a naive Pollyanna who still believes in fairy dust. But then all I have to do is look at a poem a student wrote for me which is framed and placed beside my desk
The last line says: ‘Your love, Mrs. Spence, is like a clock, it always ticks.’
Sidebar: Excellent sources for teaching tolerance.
World Wide Web:
- Plater Robinson offers a teacher’s guide to teaching Schindler’s List. The manual can be downloaded or you can order one for 20 dollars.
Try:
tulane.edu
- ‘Teachers helping teachers’ offers wonderful links and suggestions and lesson plans for teaching tolerance. One lesson plan I’d recommend is called “Disability Sensitivity”.
Try :
pacificnet.net
- On own website, I’ll soon be posting some of my own lesson plans that I’ve created and found useful in promoting tolerance. Try:
faraspence.com
Books:
- Adam Rapp’s book Little Chicago is a haunting novel about being an social outcast at school. The language is simple and articulate; Rapp’s book was listed as “A best book of 1997″ by School Library Journal’. Info: Adam Rapp, Little Chicago, Front Street Publishing, ISBN:1-886910-72-3
- A Boy called It, by Dave Pelzer, Health Communications;ISBN: 1558743669. Audio cassette also available.Pelzer’s account of his boyhood abuse.
- Taking Steps Towards Tolerance and Compassion, a guide which offers creative projects and ideas in the classroom. Author: Learning Works. ISBN:0881603562
- Tribes, a New Way of Learning and Being Together, by Jeanne Gibbs, CenterSource Systems, LLC; (July 2001) ISBN: 0932762409. This book takes a new look at the way we define education. Very enlightening.
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