hello everyone... This article is an old post of my blog. Here I post it again to remind us all how noble it is to be a teacher! Enjoy...
An Ideal Teacher
Prophet
Muhammad is the examples of those great teachers who changed the world
and still, their teachings are affecting people throughout the world.
Of course, he was not easily accepted in their society in the
beginning. It took years for him to struggle. Yet he succeeded to
survive and able to enlighten people with what he shared: knowledge.
This acknowledges us that to be a teacher is in fact a great
responsibility and he should try to possess the qualities of such great
people though he knows, it is not an easy job to do.
Besides
having fabulous and fine knowledge at least in his discipline, which is
in my opinion this is a core provision a teacher must have, he also
must have great moral values because he is one being followed by the
students. He must not make himself to stay with his lectures and study
stuff only but he must also play a vital role in students’ counseling.
He must make his personality friendly and polite so that students do
not give another thought to the idea of sharing something regarding
studies or daily life problems. For instance, providing constant care
and being a good listener for the students’ concern are the keys.
A
teacher should be able to communicate well. Good mastery in knowledge
will mean nothing without good delivery. Many college teachers can be
taken as examples for this matter, and this goes to the fact that their
students get nothing from him. Only a few college teachers, that so
far I only met one, who are eager to take care of the students, pay
attention to the students’ concern, be fully tolerable, and even, which
I am remarkably amazed, eager to take notes in the student’s seminar
only for the student’s interest.
There are so many small and big
things that must be considered while being a great teacher as a great
teacher gets too much love and respect by whole society. However, that
illustration above is just the ideal characteristics of a good teacher.
For me, what is more important is that a teacher must have something
special. That something which differs him from other good teachers,
something that will motivate and encourage his students to be
distinctive and acquire more character.
The fact is, many of
Indonesian teachers only know how to teach. They never think of other
things beyond their responsibility to teach. In fact, being a good
example for the students is a part of education as well. To my opinion,
being a good, distinctive teacher is how to get myself to write well.
Teacher as a Writer
Everyone
must be able to write. Although a person indirectly writes by
dictating what he is thinking to another person, he is a real writer,
because it is he who has the idea and pours it into the written form.
It is not the person, who is dictated to write, is the real writer.
Everyone
can write. What makes it different is only about the fact that he can
make a good or bad writing. What makes an article good or bad is the
way it is delivered. The method of delivery also varies according to
the material /content of the writing, the intended reader group, and
the era. The way of writing a literary work is, of course, different
from a work on fish farming. How to write for young readers and for
adult readers must also be different. The demands of the times demand
different ways of delivery as well. Besides, each author must have a
different way of writing.
Among writers, there is a teacher,
lecturer and storyteller, which means, all writers are teachers.
However, not all teachers are writers. Someone, who composes books, is a
teacher for those who read it. The materials and the ideas he advances
or ideas contained in the book that he writes is a lesson to its
readers, no matter what the theme is. On the contrary, not all teachers
can be writers because most teachers, especially in Indonesia, are
only to convey what’s in the book, which is actually the work of
others’, so that the real teacher for students is the author of the
textbook while the teacher in the classroom just explains or convey
what is in it.
A writer is someone who certainly has the hobby of
reading, and that someone certainly has extensive knowledge and loves
to seek new information. As a good writer, he would take more and more
references to be included in a work, ro that it betters the quality of
the work. The better the references the better the quality will be, he
will think. More references make the work better, the high quantity of
references can also bring the writer to look at a material from various
directions and points of view, and of course this will create a work
to be objective.
A good teacher is, of course, a good writer.
Someone will be able to explain a work better than others when it is
his own work, because he is an expert in that field and really
understands the contents. Because he really understands the content of
his work, then he will be good in front of his students. However, most
teachers simply explain what they understand in a textbook without
knowing the real meaning or purpose of the author. This is what will
make the teacher lake of understanding and the make students more and
more confused,
As an example, take the course of a junior high
school history book, A study of early humans. This lesson explains that
there was a man, similar to a monkey, who later evolved over millions
of years and eventually became a human, like us today. Using evidences,
such as fossils and scientific computations, evolutionary scientists
argued that we were descended from apes. That theory had been believed
by us until recently the theory is successfully refuted by scientists
who argue that humans are not descended from apes. All theories about
the evolution theory turns out to be “approximation” and even the
originator of this theory, Charles Darwin, actually admitted that he
was not so sure about this theory. One by one, fossil findings,
reinforcing the theory of evolution, have been proven wrong, where most
of the fossils are hoaxes and engineered by attaching a few bones of
apes and pigs to cover the shortage of the fossils. Early human fossils
found are actually just a type of ape fossils that has been extinct.
the theory of evolution finally becomes the laughingstock of the whole
world.
The fact that a book about ancient human history and the
lessons are still taught in schools today remains there, however. If
the teacher who teaches the history of this subject still discusses
this, and he is not up to date with new knowledge, he will teach
ancient humans blindly to his disciples, and this will cause new errors
to the students. This is what I mean by not understanding about what
is taught.
However, a teacher who is also a writer will understand
if something goes wrong in what he teaches, because a teacher, who is
also an author, has a lot of information, especially about what he’s
learned and taught. A history teacher, who is also an author, has more
information about the history than a history teacher who is not a
writer. An English teacher who is also a writer in English will have a
higher capacity than a teacher who just sticks on a book he uses to
teach in the classroom.
By writing, a person will be required to
have a lot of information about what he Teaches, because he will be
prosecuted to the accountability of what he has written for any errors.
By having a lot of information related to what he writes, the writer
will be able to minimize the mistakes he makes in his writing. Thus,
this author at least has owned a lot of information about what he
writes and teaches.
The teacher who is also a writer will be able
to explain many things related to what he teaches and is able to
explain clearly to students from various points of view. Such teachers
will be able to master the class and of course able to control the
students. He will be able to explain with his own language, which is
flexible and not rigid. Teachers will also be able to explain the
material in with fun and certainly with different methods from the
methods used by a teacher who is not a writer. Of course this way will
be more effective in delivering lessons to students.
Wallahu a'lam bi al-shawab.
