Oliver Skillsworth is the pseudonym for a group of Christian school teachers who have taught across the grades from kindergarten through college and communicate on an irregular basis with one another to discuss emerging educational practice, research application in the classroom, integration and obfuscation of content, the craft of teaching, and the ongoing impact of rubber cement fumes upon the psyche of school office workers and administration. No educational stone is left unturned.
To: My beloved staff of the Full Grace Classical Christian School of the Ages
From: Oliver Skillsworth, instructional ombudsman
I follow my last letter to you with this clarifying tone to enlarge your understanding of the simple habits that will serve to aid you in developing the teaching craft.
The Foolishness of Flattery
Though I did make the case that some frequent public praise is beneficial to all students, I did not intend to intimate that one should with random abandonment shower students with undeserved flattery. Sadly, I have found many to be so generous and indiscriminate with words of praise and adulation for their students that within a short time all value is removed from such expressions. I believe that Solomon spoke with some frequency and eloquence to this phenomenon.
Attention must rather be given to sculpt words of praise specific for each young mind rather than as global exultations. Those words should give focus to unique and specific accomplishments or actions rather than the students themselves. Is not our goal to create a love for learning rather than dependence upon human praise?
The Power of Proximity
While we are all cautious in our physical contact with children, and appropriately so, I last left you with the guide that prudence herein is to be desired over liberality. However, my friends, what you have failed to realize is that there remains a plethora of meaningful contact possibilities with students, all of which function to aid in their sense of well-being in the classroom, their sense of acceptance and approval by their beloved teacher, and as an unconscious stimulus to higher levels of achievement. The most common of these is the mere presence of the teacher standing close to a learner. It will have as much of a benefit as does a pat on the back, face-to-face instruction, or a carefully expressed touch on the shoulder. The awareness of the teacher’s remaining close at hand serves as a strong and positive influence upon learners while also enhancing their level of focus and self-discipline.
The Rule of Two-Thirds
As educators we are about the business of communication and the inculcation of skills essential to life, yet I have unfortunately found the rule of two-thirds to be in force in many instructional locales, namely that someone in the classroom is talking two-thirds of the time and it is most frequently the teacher. This should not be. Rather, ample opportunity must, with intentionality and purpose, be given to providing students with opportunity to speak, dialogue, interact, and communicate with the teacher and one another within a well-organized framework. How will we know their thoughts and consequential needs, hopes, dreams, challenges, and concerns without frequent occasion to hear those thoughts expressed?
The Testimony of the Upright
Shocked as our young charges may be to know that teachers have an actual life apart from the schoolroom, there is power to be found in the simple testimony. Telling of God’s great work in your own life—the prayer victories, the mistakes and foibles (within reason and with discretion, of course), and the story of your own spiritual pilgrimage—all make you a “real” person. Tell them of your spiritual adventure so that they might embrace their own with enthusiasm. There is power in your story.
May God richly bless you,
O. Skillsworth
Teaching for Learning: Refining One's Teaching Skills 9.3