The Role of the Teacher: Motivating the Learner

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What is the role of the teacher, and what steps will you take to ensure that you are fulfilling this role?

The role of the teacher is to instruct his students with valuable and worthy lessons that would produce a favorable change in the life of the students. In order for the instruction to be effective, and in order for the change in the life of the students to be lifelong, the teacher must instill discipline and “make disciples” out of students. Since the law of apperception dictates that all learning depends on skills that were previously acquired, should a teacher succeed in instilling discipline in his students, then his students will be prepared for the next set of lessons that life has in store. Thus, the teacher will have performed his role.

In the context of Christian education, the teacher performs his role by using lessons culled from the Bible and communicating them through lectures, seminars, or discussions. However, in order to be an effective teacher, I should expand on these lessons by providing real-life examples and hypothetical illustrations in order for the student to find relevance in the lessons taught. I should provide good models for the student to imitate, and in fact, I should also make sure that I am a good model myself by knowing and taking to heart all the lessons I teach. In other words, the instruction must be thorough. To ensure that I am fulfilling my role as teacher, I must provide an opportunity for the students to respond to the lesson. According to the Richards and Bredfeldt, when a student discovers a relationship between himself and the lesson, the “pathway to personal response stands open.” By making the lessons individually applied, decentralized and student-centered, but teacher-oriente...

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...em to look at several elements that affect their student’s motivation and ask why and how this affects them in the first place. After that, I would tell him to arrange a lesson plan utilizing structural factors such as patterns and sequences, with a view to individual application and the group dynamics of the class. By doing so, the teacher can grow in his students a sense of shared motivation guided by these structural factors, so that each interrelated lesson are remembered. These lesson plans must also consider the effective ways of instilling discipline in the students. The teacher must allow for response from the students so that he may understand the students’ perception of reality, value systems, and will, so that he may understand how to motivate his students more. By understanding the motivations of his students, he can bring about a change in their lives.

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