Last week, I attended a lecture by Dr. Charles Amjad-Ali. The lecture was titled Isalm and Christian Muslim Dialogue: Theological and Political Challenge and Opportunity. I analyzed his lecture in relation to education and teaching.
First, Dr. Amjad-Ali was twenty minutes late to his own lecture. It didn't seem very professional, and in a sense, made the audience a little negative towards him before we had even met him. When I am a teacher, if I ever show up twenty minutes late, my students would be left unattended and could injure themselves or get in other forms of trouble. I would be in trouble, too, especially since I will be teaching elementary students, who would not know what to do if I didn't show up to class.
When Dr. Amjad-Ali did arrive, he had a very professional appearance. This made him seem confident in what he was teaching. He also had a strong and loud voice. His voice commanded attention and made me want to listen to him. These are things that I can do when I'm a teacher. I can look professional (which will be a requirement anyway) and I can have a commanding voice. If I am confident in myself, and show that confidence to my students, they in turn will be confident and engaged.
Dr. Amjad-Ali made some jokes during his lecture. This helped to break up the seriousness of the lesson. It also made him seem more personable. I will have to remember that my entire lesson can't be filled with only work; there must be some play, or fun times during the lesson when I can make a joke or reference to something my elementary-age students will understand.
Along with making jokes, Dr. Amjad-Ali looked happy during his lecture. This made it seem like he enjoyed being there. It also made the audience think positively about his lesson. This goes along with an idea we talked about in class. We think that when elementary level teachers are negative towards math, this causes their students to be negative towards math. If Dr. Amjad-Ali had been negative towards his lecture, the audience probably would have been negative towards it, too. As a teacher, I will need to be careful with how I display my attitudes towards anything.
A final note about the lecture, Dr. Amjad-Ali talked clearly and slowly, which helped me to understand him, as he had an accent. It will be important for me to do this when I am a teacher, because I will probably have students in my classes whose first language is not English. I do not want to put them at a disadvantage because they can not understand me.
I will finish with a few quotes from the lecture:
"I don't have private property on intelligence."
"I don't have permission as a Christian to hate."
"Man is not tempted by wisdom. He is tempted by woman. Woman is tempted by wisdom." - in relation to the Biblical story of Adam and Eve
1 comment:
Laura, I really enjoyed hearing your thoughts on the lecturer's approach and style. It's fun to see that you can take so much from a person's method of teaching. I hope you can someday use this blog as a reference tool when you're on your own in the classroom someday!
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