A promise to teach

Dear new teachers,

I was at the bleachers when some of you took your oath last Saturday in Cebu. You had spark in your eyes. But I also perceived some pain, probably a mark of what you have been through in your education and the licensure exams. I was there when the mayor addressed you by reciting the entire lyrics of the song, The Greatest Love of All. I will no longer speculate on what he was thinking when he did that except to say that you all deserved better.

But in what was the highlight of the day when you were asked to take the oath, I panned my eyes through each row from the back and saw each of a thousand of you raise your right hand to make a promise — a promise to teach. And because there are more relevant advice out there about teaching than from Whitney Houston, I thought I’d use this week’s column to share some discoveries about how we learn, and therefore are relevant to how you teach.  

Children are NOT blank slates. That is a myth long debunked by neuroscience. I have heard elementary school teachers say that they have been taught that it is up to teachers to write in that blank slate of children’s heads. Do not flatter or overburden yourself with this task. Children come with their own brains, with their own predispositions based on their genetic inheritance. These could be talents but they could also be challenges to learning. Children will write their own view of the world based on what you teach them, what their parents gave them whether in genes or lessons, and their own experiences as they grow up.  

The brain is not fixed. It can change. It can only change when you use it. Never doom a student to a label that cages her own capacity to learn. Your role is to help your student access her mind to make it work for her in terms of her goal.

Place equal importance to the sciences and the arts. They are the greatest of human traditions. They complement each other. Science is not about facts but a way of thinking about the world with a sense of wonder about it all. Art is an expression of the human condition — a response to the world. Teaching will not be complete if you are crippled in the sciences or the arts. Good human beings are enriched by both.

Encourage questioning among your students. The teacher is not supposed to know it all but to encourage her students to love to find things out. If you think the only answers are the ones that the teacher knows, you should be a preacher and not a teacher. Teach your students HOW to think and not WHAT to think.

Poverty is an explanation but not an excuse to stop exploring possibilities. Never allow your students to believe they will always be able to do only little things because they are poor. Knowledge, not death, is the greatest leveller. With education, people are able to share their learned passions, regardless of income bracket or social status.

Most of all, before you can teach anything, you have to understand it yourself. It is like sleeping — no one can do it on your behalf. You can only do that if you learn new things every day. You cannot rely on printed textbooks because the world changes as well as our understanding of it much even faster now. Now that you are a professional teacher, make a life-long promise to yourself to be a hungry learner. And when you do, may your appetites never cease.

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