Imagine that you have been given a classroom full of students ranging in age from 9 to 19. Some speak English and some don't. Some have never been to school while others have recently been enrolled in high school courses. Each student brings with him experiences that are startlingly different from your own. Some have spent a year or more in police lockups or jails. How do you write a lesson plan?
Saint John Baptist De La Salle told his Brothers that they would have to know each student well enough to chose the correct methods of teaching and encouraging good behavior. For many of us who have taught in classrooms full of 35 or more students, this can be very difficult and I, for one, have not been very good at realizing this goal over the years. But here at Bahay Pag-asa, we are able to focus our attentions on smaller groups of students and learn about them. Each day, we evaluate anew our teaching methods, reconsider student groupings and make substantial changes in our lesson plans. It's the only thing that works here.
Fortunately, we have a tremendous teaching tool here - the boys themselves. Not only are they willing to assist us in teaching, they are amazingly good at teaching each other. If there is a particular new skill, you can often teach it to the group by teaching it to one of the boys and letting it spread throughout the group. I like to call it "infectious teaching." It makes our work here fun, exciting and surprisingly productive.
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