It's NOT About What You Know! | Previous Challenge Entry

how it works

TITLE: It's NOT About What You Know! | Previous Challenge Entry
By Chad Lower
11/02/06
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Students don't care how much you know until they know how much you care.

I joined a program called Teach for America because I believed in their mission statement: One day, all children will have the opportunity to attain an excellent education. The summer I joined, I went to Houston for a 5 week (what I call) boot camp getting us ready to teach in our designated sites. During those 5 weeks, you had to get up early (6:30 am to eat breakfast and catch the bus) and go to bed late (2:30 am or later after getting your grading and lesson plans finished for the next day). Every day, you taught in the morning, took classes in the afternoon, then got home around dinner time and needed to get ready for the next day. In addition, they offered lectures in the evening which you required to attend 5. In my case, I was also taking 3 college courses during this time period towards my certification.

That fall, I taught high school math during the day while taking education classes in the evenings and I finished getting my certification after two more years. I can't say I leaned nothing in those two and a half years. What I can say is that the most important things I learned about teaching wasn't when I was taking classes. I will even say that it was the lessons outside the classroom that have really made me an effective teacher today.

Certain things I learned, well, they just don't have a class that exists to talk about the topics. For example, when you erase the board, you always want to erase up and down. If you erase side-to-side, your butt wiggles as you erase. This technique probably isn't a big deal unless you are a young attractive woman teaching freshmen in high school, but an important lesson anyway.

My most favorite quote I learned while teaching is that, "students don't care how much you know until they know how much you care." This phrase rang especially true when I taught in Detroit at the alternative high school (read: a school of and for delinquent students). Even now that I am teaching college level classes and college level kids, I find that it still applies.

I am called a "math teacher," but really I am a whole person teacher. I don't limit the knowledge I share to only math. And by being a whole person teacher, I can show my students that I care about them and their issues, and that I am not only interested in making sure they can find the derivative of the natural log of x. (It's 1/x by the way.)

I think Jesus taught in much the same manner. Not that He cared about derivatives, but He cared about people. And because of His caring, He could then teach His lessons--usually in the form of parables. He reached people by fulfilling their needs, then shared with them the Good News of God's love for them.

Even upon His death, He was still teaching. He's hanging there on a cross with nails through His wrists next to two thieves. The one thief turned and said to Jesus, "Jesus, remember me when you come into your Kingdom." Jesus could belittle the man. Condemn him for the crime that put him on the cross. Told him all the crimes he had ever committed.

But He doesn't.

Instead, He cares. "Today you will be with me in heaven." There is room for everyone. Even for those who have had intentionally sinful lives. He cared about the thief. He cares about you. Will he say the same thing to you on the day of your death?

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