Preach it, teacher.

In this process of updating my blog, I'm posting several things I've written for other blogs. I wrote this about 9 months ago -

People are so skeptical of authority these days. Maybe they’ve always been skeptical of authority, but it seems to be getting worse. This makes the job of teaching tricky. “Why should I care?” “Why do we have so much homework/so many tests?” “I’ll never need to know this when I’m older” are questions and comments that have to be subliminally answered in every class period.

I’m always trying to prove to my students why what they’re learning and how they’re learning matters. And I always want to make sure that it’s true - that I’m not wasting their time - that what I’m communicating will better them in some way - that they will be smarter, more informed, a better critical thinker, a better problem solver, better at a certain skill by the end.

A prime example: I am teaching my health class about STD’s tomorrow. My opening line comes from a pastor in Seattle, Mark Driscoll: “Is sex gross, a god or a gift?” I want them to know I’m not trying to scare them out of having premarital sex. I’m not trying to use my authority to make sure they “behave.” No, I’m not trying to communicate tomorrow that sex is gross. I am a firm believer that sex is a gift, a beautiful gift. However, STD’s (or STI’s) are real and affect a great number of sexually active individuals. They range in severity everywhere from curable by antibiotics to deadly. And most teenagers can throw around the words “chlamydia” and “syphilis” without really having any idea what they do to your body. I want my students to be informed, intelligent human beings on the subject.

People always want to know why. Heck, I always want to know why. If I can’t see a good reason, I don’t want to do it. Because of that, I always want to have an applicable answer to the question, “Why are we doing this?” (Note: a close relative to the question, “Who cares?”). Students may not have the humility, foresight or perspective to always agree with my answer, but I want to be confident that it is valid. If it continues to pay off in the classroom (much like a coach who continually pushes his team towards perfection), I hope to get the students on my side, working hard for me and with me.