Yesterday, I talked about the virtue of learning patience. Today is a new day.
I take a lot of pride in my work as a teacher and I want my students to learn as much as they can. Ideally, I want all of my students to be able to remember everything I teach them even if I know that expectation is absurdly high. My classes tend to go well overall, but there are disasters from time-to-time. Sometimes my kids will be kids and just wanna play. I want to them to learn, but trying to get them to focus doesn't always work. It's a little frustrating and sometimes I just wanna force them to stop and focus, but if I did that would it because I wanted them to learn or would it be because of my own pride and frustration?
Regardless of what I want, those kids have their own freedom, too. If I were to force them to do something they didn't want to do that would make me selfish. Looking back on teachers I didn't like, they were generally controlling, impatient, and didn't try to understand me or my own interests. They just wanted to "do their job" and would send me away if I wasn't being "good".
Although I want my students to learn and do what I can to help them focus, if the student doesn't want to learn, they're not gonna learn and that's out of my control. Them losing motivation reflects my own inability to keep their attention and make the class engaging enough to spark their interest. The best I can do is work hard to teach and care for my students the best as I can. If it doesn't work that's okay. I have to accept it. I can go home knowing that I tried and that I still have room for improvement.
Rather than trying to make other people conform to my ideals, I think the best I can do is to work toward becoming who I want to be. Instead of trying to change others, I have to take responsibility and change myself. If I don't, it'd be no better than escaping my problems by pointing the blame on to others. That's not what I want to become.
Peace
"Be not angry that you cannot make others as you wish them to be, since you cannot make yourself as you wish to be." - Thomas A. KempisWe all have our own ideals, interests, and ambitions. We all want our own freedom. Yet we sometimes forget this when interacting we other people. When things don't go our way we get frustrated because we strongly value our own interests and our pride takes a hit when our efforts weren't able to make things go the way we'd want them to.
I take a lot of pride in my work as a teacher and I want my students to learn as much as they can. Ideally, I want all of my students to be able to remember everything I teach them even if I know that expectation is absurdly high. My classes tend to go well overall, but there are disasters from time-to-time. Sometimes my kids will be kids and just wanna play. I want to them to learn, but trying to get them to focus doesn't always work. It's a little frustrating and sometimes I just wanna force them to stop and focus, but if I did that would it because I wanted them to learn or would it be because of my own pride and frustration?
Regardless of what I want, those kids have their own freedom, too. If I were to force them to do something they didn't want to do that would make me selfish. Looking back on teachers I didn't like, they were generally controlling, impatient, and didn't try to understand me or my own interests. They just wanted to "do their job" and would send me away if I wasn't being "good".
Although I want my students to learn and do what I can to help them focus, if the student doesn't want to learn, they're not gonna learn and that's out of my control. Them losing motivation reflects my own inability to keep their attention and make the class engaging enough to spark their interest. The best I can do is work hard to teach and care for my students the best as I can. If it doesn't work that's okay. I have to accept it. I can go home knowing that I tried and that I still have room for improvement.
Rather than trying to make other people conform to my ideals, I think the best I can do is to work toward becoming who I want to be. Instead of trying to change others, I have to take responsibility and change myself. If I don't, it'd be no better than escaping my problems by pointing the blame on to others. That's not what I want to become.
Peace
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| Change the self, change the world. |
What kind of person do you want to be?
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