Blue Skies of Iceland by Stuck in Customs

When it comes to teaching, having the right perspective can make or break your lesson.

Fuller Seminary professor Bobby Clinton has said,

“The primary difference between a follower and a leader is perspective. The primary difference between a leader and an effective leader is better perspective.”

As a teacher, consider yourself a ‘learning leader.’ That’s what you are. You lead people in learning.

To continually stay in learning mode, even as an established teacher, there are some things that you simply must do in order to keep your mind sharp and your perspective fresh.

1. Do

One of those things is that you must continually stay in the trenches, on the front line, living the life of a teacher. To be great at anything you have to do that thing. The power is in the doing. To call yourself a teacher, you must be teaching. Pretty simple.

2. Read

A second major thing that you must do to continually enhance and expand your perspective is you must read. Your reading should be both wide and deep.

Reading widely means reading throughout a wide range of subjects. This is important because as a teacher you will always have a diverse audience of many different backgrounds and subject interests. Since analogies are an important tool in the teaching process having a broad range of subjects to relate to will make your analogies more relevant and potent.

Reading deeply means reading intensely within the subject on which you are considered the expert. You will never know enough and surely will never know everything there is to know about your subject. So stay in student mode and read as much as your can about your subject even when you disagree with the document you are reading. Developing an understanding of multiple perspectives within your discipline will make your message even more powerful when relating the lesson to your students.

3. Interview

A third major activity you can do to better your perspective is conduct interviews of people inside your discipline. Whether these are official interviews that you publish in a professional
periodical or your website or whether you simply keep this interview to yourself, interviews can be a constant source of fresh perspective for any teacher.

In review, the quality of your teaching is based on the quality of your perspective. Three major ways you can continually enhance and expand your perspective is to always be in teaching mode, read deeply and widely, and conduct interviews with other leaders in your discipline.

If you make these three items a part of your life, you will always be on the cutting edge, and you will never want for a hungry and loyal following.

Further Reading

“Education Is the Building of the Person.”

The Secret of Getting Motivated

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