Inspiring Students to Become Lifelong Learners

As a teacher for many years, have you reached that stage in which everything seems to be just a routine? Do you feel as if creating lesson plans and checking papers are merely burdens that put a big strain on what could otherwise be a better life for you? If you are stuck in such a rut, then perhaps you need to think twice about this career. Or perhaps you need to take a break from it all.

What is teaching all about, after all? Is it just about making a child get high grades and enabling a student to graduate? Yes, these things may be some of the important goals that a teacher must try to attain for his fulfillment. However, it does not stop at the academic level. School is just a training ground for the real world out there, for the everyday challenges that life will bring your students. So keeping this perspective in mind, what should you leave in the minds of your students more than those formulas, grammar rules, and historical facts? Inspiring students... this is one of the things many young teachers want to achieve. Maybe at some point in your past, when you had decided to become a teacher, you had also been ideal enough to want to inspire these young learners.

ANECDOTES
One effective way to inspire students is through anecdotes. Children love stories! Even adults adore stories! Throughout many generations, stories have served as a means of passing on historical events, customs, and traditions. Even when print was not invented yet, stories were very powerful already. They expanded people's knowledge and taught them about many things. When you are teaching a class, storytelling is one surefire method you can use to capture the attention of your students. Little do they know that the lessons weaved into each story are already being planted in their subconscious. That is why you also have to choose your stories carefully.

QUOTATIONS
There are some teachers who like to begin the day by sharing inspirational quotations from famous people. Students are asked to interpret the quotation and to share their thoughts, ideas, and insights about it. In some classes, the teacher encourages the students to write about it in a daily journal. You may also opt to use it before letting the kids go home, instead of at the start of the day. In this way, they will think about it more as they leave the school and go on living their lives outside of the classroom. For other teachers, they like to also use quotations as a motivation to catch the interest of students before formally starting a lesson. When this is the case, the quotations are related to the lesson.

REAL-LIFE SITUATIONS
When you assign activities or create group work for your students, it would be good to give them real-life situations in which they can learn something more practical while applying the lesson. For instance, if you are teaching them about making and reading maps, instead of using make-believe ones, provide a situation like this: have them pretend to be graphic designers who were assigned to create a map of the school grounds for the school brochure. Just don't forget to process the students afterward and have them reflect on the activity.