Creating Winners in the School

Good teachers create winners. Winners are authentic, fearless, independent, imaginative people who are proud of themselves, who love others and care for them. These are people who know how to touch others, how to give and how to take. They have the courage to make their own decisions and they make these decisions based on their own thinking. At the same time, they also know how to listen to others and have genuine respect for their views.

Winners have a powerful, positive self-image and are perseverant. They challenge themselves continuously, aspiring to climb to greater heights every day. They know how to forgive and forget, and to let bygones be bygones. They celebrate life and see beauty in the most ordinary things.

Here are twenty ways a teacher can create a winner out of every child:

1. Challenge each child to do her best.
2. Set a good example by your own practice.
3. Care for each individual child and her needs.
4. Don’t let her give up easily.
5. Make her work out most of her own problems.
6. Keep her focused on the goals ahead.
7. Give credit to her when she achieves.
8. Correct her errors in private.
9. Celebrate her successes.
10. Be energetic and enthusiastic.
11. Listen.
12. Be patient.
13. Be accessible.
14. Make her feel confident.
15. Have trust in her abilities.
16. Set attainable goals for her.
17. Empower her.
18. Be there when she needs you.
19. Put her interests before your interests.
20. Enjoy your job.

I have spoken of the student here in the feminine gender. Of course, I mean both boys and girls. But I feel teachers have to be more conscious about creating a winner out of every girl because our education system, like the rest of our society, is biased against her. As of now, education gives boys more opportunities to be winners than it gives girls. In the case of girls, our ages old perceptions of what a girl should be reduces her chances of turning out a winner. Frequently, while ambitious boys are admired for their ambition, ambitious girls are secretly sneered at for the same thing.

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