Children spend about seven hours a day at school, five days a week, during the most formative years of their lives. In addition to math, reading, history, and science, the classroom should then be a place to learn how to be good members of society.
There are a few basic virtues that students can and should learn during the school day, namely “civility, confidence, resilience and ambition” as author Jeff Nelligan described in his book Four Lessons From My Three Sons.
It seems, amid the ongoing debates about how to handle education these days, we have gotten away from this sentiment – that it is, in fact, okay for students to learn how to be good people and confident professionals.
Nelligan points out in his book that there is “no intellect necessary” when making eye contact while speaking to someone, and “no expertise needed” in shaking hands.
Culture has been moving in a direction which makes it difficult for parents and teachers to be blunt when bringing up children. Despite that, teachers should be intentional, principled, and clear. Here are a few tips that teachers can adopt to help students become more virtuous, confident, and aware.
- Point out good and bad behavior as it happens, and encourage students to emulate the former and avoid replicating the latter.
- Encourage students to be observant of the world around them. Engage them with questions that keep them focused and sharp.
- Take any opportunity to reinforce fundamental principles including but not limited to punctuality, etiquette, and kindness.
- Make it a point to build a student’s self-assurance and competence. Instill in each of them the knowledge that they have the capability to not only succeed in the classroom, but also make it in life and take care of themselves.
As Nelligan puts it, parenting and teaching “in this incredibly erratic and questionable culture deman[d] hard and direct truths, not soft-pedalled equivocation.” These days it takes a bold teacher to instill these “virtues,” but those who do will make a great difference in the lives of their students.