Synergy

The Power of Synergetic Teaching
Many teachers today are unhappy or even distressed in their work. Most who have this feeling say they very much want to teach and help students, but find theirstudents unmotivated, uncooperative, difficult to teach, and hard to handle. Teachers’ daily struggle under these conditions, with little success to show for their effort, erodes class morale andsuppresses energy and initiative. Classes become a dull daily grind. These teachers know students are not enjoying their experience in school. The teachers are not enjoying it either.
Yet, in contrast,many teachers are notably successful. Their students learn, enjoy school, and appreciate the educational experience. These heart-warming results have little to do with expensive instructional materialsor costly facilities. The results occur because successful teachers know some things that are crucially important about teaching effectively and making learning enjoyable. They know how to rallystudents to them. They know how to build trust. They know how to strengthen and capitalize on student dignity and enhance personal relations in their classes. They know how to communicate well and helpstudents resolve problems and conflicts. They know how to make lessons consistently interesting and worthwhile. And they add sparkle to daily classroom life with their personal charisma. By doing thesethings, teachers feed energy to their students who, in turn, feed energy back to the teacher. This mutually energizing phenomenon is referred to as synergy and is the fundamental principle insynergetic teaching and discipline.
If you are able to teach in ways that increase class synergy, you can be sure your students will like and respect you. They will willingly, even eagerly, immersethemselves in the educational activities you provide. As a natural consequence, they will show more responsibility, self-direction, and self-discipline. Discipline problems will be few and far between, and...