ATTENTION

As a teacher, once the spell of your attention is broken it is extraordinarily difficult – with children one might almost say impossible – to recapture it. The mind is always attending to something. If, therefore, you ever allow yourself to say that your class was inattentive, you are simply saying what is not true. They ARE attending to something. Your remark is merely a public confession that they found something else more interesting than they found you. Do not lay blame on them, but commune with your own soul and try to discover why and where you lost hold over them, and allowed their minds to wander. They are under no vow or obligation to attend to you, and you are being paid to teach them – i.e to gain and hold their attention. It would not be a bad thing if every teacher in the world were to have hanging in his bedroom, so that it would be seen first thing every morning on waking up, a motto framed and glazed like the texts of an older generation; and the words would be: “If ever my class is inattentive, it is because I am dull.” OUCH!!! :-O   :-O