What is teaching? It’s a lifetime of learning how to access one’s personal power. That’s one definition.
I haven’t written this anywhere, but I feel that one of the root issues of bad classroom management is a lack of personal power in the teacher. That’s not an easy one. We are taught to please others and then we have to turn around and be unpleasant, or smile and fake being pleasant when we want to strangle the kid who is ruining our class.
That smile, don’t talk and point to rule #2 thing that I started doing about ten years ago is good, but you don’t have to smile. You can keep a straight face.
I wish I could have those books back from Teacher’s Discovery to fix that. We don’t have to be stern and smile at the same time. It’s too much.
Well, at least I can say it here. Most of us know it anyway. And most of us know that everything in the natural approach books and all my books really is just a suggestion. We all have to do find our own power in our own classroom ourselves bc we all have different personalities.
The main thing is to not get so bent out of shape inside while we are teaching and then hide it. The kids can see it.
The natural approach books are the only thing I have ever used that allow me to not feel all twisted up inside when teaching, that make me feel good in the classroom. The natural approach books brought me the only real freedom I have ever experienced as a teacher.
That pedagogy brought me the personal power I needed to not be crazy all day in the school building. It really is something. I’m glad I invented it. Actually, God gave it to me. So I should say thank you to God for showing me a way to teach that isn’t crazy.