Verstehen by Rev. Camden

Verstehen by Rev. Camden - January 2015 Scholarship Essay

To properly teach anyone, it is my belief that one must be willing to understand why a student is in the classroom and be able to communicate the importance of what they are teaching. Students come from so many different backgrounds, each one is there for a purpose and that purpose is both their motivation to learn, and the key to teaching them. The majors we choose are indicative of the people we are striving to become.

To really reach students teachers must understand these motives for their students, a student who has been recognized as an individual by his teacher is able to relate his own experiences and goals to the material presented which helps the information become more relevant to their individual education. A simple list made at the beginning of the semester containing a students name and major, can help to involve the class as a whole and serves as an index for the teacher to use in discussion when a topic may be relevant to a particular field of study.

In practice this may mean a linguistics class where you identify speakers of multiple languages to share pronunciation of different words, or a mathematics course where a specific student is found to be struggling with a concept who may be able to better understand it by thinking of ways in which the concept could be applied in their field. I strongly believe the majority of student class performance is directly related to their involvement and interest in the material.

Communicating the importance of what you are teaching is critical, a student is often perceptive of the teachers interest or excitement about the material. To ensure students successfully learn a given subject, it is important that the teacher shows that they have taken sufficient time and effort to understand in the subject.