The Faithful

I had another day of meaningful learning experience from our CTM class. Got another chance to evaluate what we have been practicing nowadays in terms of educating students. Truly, as what was implied in the discussion, teachers are blessed by God with such a significant responsibility. That is to educate our students the best possible way, to carry our task faithfully, and hope that what we teach will stick in their minds and be used to advance worthy cause. And we are to continually develop and improve our craft because our learners’ educational needs are also growing continuously.

We ought to always consider the learning styles of our learners. A teacher who always pushes for personal preferences would always end up not teaching much. What we should strive for is to understand the context of our learners, to realize that each one has his/her own learning style, in a sense, to be faithful in our practice. But then, what faithfulness are we referring to? Faithful practice of teaching seems very hard to determine. How can one say that he/she is faithful in his/her role? Of course there are evaluations and the likes, results of evaluations would determine if one is doing his/her work. But will evaluation be the sole determinant of one's faithfulness? Have we thought of asking ourselves, in what way am I being faithful in my task – a teacher faithful in the task of teaching? I think it would boil down to our personal conviction. In the case of a believer, faithfulness in teaching would be in a sense faithfulness to God in the task that was entrusted. We teach because God assigned us to, and we give our best because it is God who assigned. If I can honestly say to myself that I've given everything for this task of teaching, when giving everything means getting everything (equipping oneself to the fullest), in order to be able to give many things, then perhaps I could say that I have.