• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to footer

Shady Oak Primary School

  • What We Do
    • Culture
    • Collaboration
    • Critical Thinking
    • Communication
  • Who We Are
    • Teachers
    • Leadership
  • How We Do It
    • Child-centered Learning
    • Participatory Learning
    • Skills-focused Learning
    • Play-based Learning
  • Our School
    • Admissions Overview
    • School Forms
    • Tab Studio
  • Calendar
  • Testimonials
  • Blog
    • Podcast
  • Events
  • ClassDojo
  • PTA
  • Employment
HELPING KIDS FIND THEIR PURPOSE: FOR TEACHERS

HELPING KIDS FIND THEIR PURPOSE: FOR TEACHERS

HELPING KIDS FIND THEIR PURPOSE: FOR TEACHERS

Chances are you became a teacher because you wanted to help kids build better futures. Besides helping them acquire overall skills and knowledge, you can take a big step toward helping each individual student find optimum fulfillment (and get started toward a long-term career) by encouraging everyone to find the “life purpose” that suits their temperament and talents. Here are some hints for getting started.

Make Opportunities for Exploring Personal Dreams

Depending on your class and the subject(s) you teach, you might:

  • Assign an essay or other project on “What I Want to Be When I Grow Up” or “What I Like to Do For Fun.”
  • Initiate class discussions on how games and hobbies grow into well-paying careers.
  • Have students fill out a questionnaire that categories preferences for group activities or being alone, high-energy or quiet activities, indoor or outdoor play, favorite vacation places, and other indicators of personality traits.
  • Personally observe what students focus on, in organized activities and casual conversation.

Utilize a Variety of Teaching Formats

alternative-teaching

If every school day and every assignment looks pretty much alike, only students who naturally relate to that one style will reap full benefit. Make regular room in your curricula for energetic and low-key activities, left-brained and right-brained projects, ideas clearly related and loosely related to the main topic. You might even schedule periodic brainstorming sessions where students can toss out suggestions for lesson types they’d like to try.

Leave Some Leeway For Personal Choice

Even if you teach a subject (such as mathematics) with clear “right” and “wrong” answers, don’t make a big deal over having everyone take the exact same path to those answers. The more children are allowed to improvise and innovate, the easier they will find it to pinpoint the life paths they were made for.

Other ways to leave room for personal choice in the classroom:

  • Instead of multiple-choice tests, give tests that allow students to practice active thinking and put answers into their own words.
  • Keep homework-assignment topics fairly broad (“report on nineteenth-century river travel” rather than “essay on the first steamboat”) to encourage students to develop their own slants.
  • Leave it up to students whether to include infographics, sidebars, or images—or just text—in their projects. (Book publishers use all the above; why shouldn’t children of the online generation?)

Insist on an Atmosphere of All-Around Respect

classroom-respect

If you (or any of your students) belittle any type of work or personality—however subtly—you’ve insulted everyone who has natural inclinations in that direction. Perhaps it’ll even discourage them from pursuing their purpose. Emphasize seeing every individual as an essential and equally valuable part of the whole. The world needs sanitation workers and artists no less than computer programmers, and the world benefits most when everyone in every job genuinely loves their work!

vinjeta-za-sve-stranne
smile

WAYS YOUR FAMILY CAN PROMOTE PEACE ON EARTH

By delder | January 2, 2021
Shady Oaks - Sheltered Kid

WHEN THE KIDS ARE HOME, Part 2

By delder | December 28, 2020
Cute preschooler girl has chosen a new lovely dress among a lot of clothes in child fashion store; she is happy. Sale, gifts, Christmas, holidays; beauty concept, place for your brand on tag

8 WAYS YOUR FAMILY CAN SPREAD GOODWILL

By delder | December 26, 2020
kids and puppies

WHEN THE KIDS ARE HOME, Part 1

By delder | December 23, 2020
Shady Oak - confident teacher

SOCIAL DISTANCING 201 FOR TEACHERS

By delder | December 20, 2020
shadyoak-parent-homeschooling

SOCIAL DISTANCING 201 FOR PARENTS

By delder | December 16, 2020
Volunteer teacher helping a class of preschool kids drawing

TEACHING STUDENTS TO LOVE SCHOOL

By delder | December 15, 2020
holidays

SMALL GATHERING, GREAT JOY: HOW TO TRULY CELEBRATE WHEN YOUR HOLIDAYS ARE SCALED DOWN

By delder | December 15, 2020
Kids Cooking Together

SIMPLE RECIPES FOR COLD DAYS (AND NIGHTS) AT HOME

By delder | December 14, 2020
ShadyOak-ChristmasGifts

NEED A LITTLE HOLIDAY JOY IN YOUR HOME?

By delder | December 14, 2020

Today's affirmation:
"I CARE ENOUGH TO TRANSFORM THE GOOD INTO THE GREAT"

We are located at:
600 Main Street
Richmond, TX 77469
Tel: (281) 344-1291
  • Facebook
  • Instagram
  • Twitter

Copyright © 2021 Shady Oak Primary School and boomtime , All Rights Reserved. • Email • Fine Print