On Teaching: "Paying Attention"

Written on Tuesday, February 15, 2005 Yesterday, there was a definite lack of attention in my classes, and I want to rectify that situation today. In thinking back on it this morning, I checked a dictionary and found that one of the definitions for “attend” is “to accompany or wait upon someone as a companion or servant.” I like that because it suggests that “paying attention” during class should not be something we do only because the teacher forces us to, but rather something we do because we genuinely care about everyone in the class. We want to be a true companion for our classmates, and so we “attend” to their needs by giving them our attention. We “take care of them” by being attentive when they have something they want to say. There are many important duties I have as my students’ English teacher, but surely none is more important than teaching them how to care for each other. Where to put commas and how to use a participle in a paragraph are relatively unimportant skills when compared to the skill of being good to the people around them. I want to show my students how to be serious readers and writers, but I am far more concerned about helping them become seriously kind people. Oddly enough, being kind to others, being attentive to their needs, is not an easy skill to learn. Like learning how to use participles, attending to other people when they want to share an idea or a feeling requires serious effort. My students and I have to force ourselves, day after day, to practice this wonderful skill of paying attention to others. Yesterday we failed, but today’s another day.