On Teaching: "Views in the Classroom"

I’ve been thinking lately about the immense power of “views” in my classroom. The fact is that each of us – all of my students and I – are entertaining a certain view of life during every moment of class. As I’m taking the kids through the steps of some lesson or other, each of us is holding in mind a certain outlook on reality, and this outlook actually predominates over everything else. No matter how wonderful the lesson is, what’s really important and powerful is what each of is believing about the world, and about ourselves. For instance, one student may be holding the viewpoint that the world is a scary place in which he has almost no chance to be successful. He may be almost paralyzed with this belief as he’s sitting in my classroom. Am I foolish enough to think that my lesson is going to even get through to him, much less have any important effect on his life? Needless to say, I can’t change the beliefs of my students ( not immediately, anyway), but at least I can stay fully aware of the power of their views. By keeping in mind how influential the outlooks of my students are -- how much their beliefs about life color every experience they have -- perhaps I can, to some extent, neutralize the power of those beliefs. Most importantly, by keeping my own stance toward life positive and uplifting (because, to me, that’s what life really is), perhaps I can open my students up to more optimistic views of reality. The truth is that views about life are an extremely significant force in my classroom – a force I need to be conscious of at all times.