Resources for Educators

Teaching Tip

From the Teacher’s Aide Newsletter

1996 Winter

Teacher Impact

Teachers have incredible and lasting effects on their students. Think of the impact some of your teachers had on you. Take advantage of the opportunity to create a lasting positive image with your students by building their self-esteem. Give them much verbal praise and use confidence-building phrases and actual pats on the back for good work.

• Assign students homework involving going to a massage supply store and buying something they need in their practices. By doing this students expose themselves to the various equipment available, costs and also introduce them to other professionals in a different arena within their chosen field.
• When students ask negative questions or respond in a negative way, answer their questions in a positive way. Reverse the negative into a positive so it leaves them thinking positively. It helps students learn to see the good in everything and everyone.
• Students often wonder about the relevance of information given in classes to their eventual careers. In light of this give them real-life examples of how it is useful. Do a role-play situation to convey the information through a client interview, or explain different ways in which this lesson is helpful in a session, in doing public speaking, or just in presenting oneself more powerfully.
• Involve as many senses as possible in your teaching experience. If students can feel it, touch it, smell it, look at it or hear it, they are more likely to remember it. Every opportunity you can take to involve students in participating actively helps them retain the information.