Empowering Students Through Your Teaching

Schools can influence a student’s self-concept, occupational choices and their identity. I found especially influential how school groupings can affect a student’s self-esteem. One can either do well in school or not. And students in the middle are kind of neglected. For the students who do well in school, it can lead to having more self-esteem (for example: this is a high achieving student who gets high scores on standardized tests, having parental support, engaged in class, placed in the higher track classes, have a teacher that expects highly of him/her, etc.). And for the less unfortunate students who are low-achieving, they suffer academically and psychologically, oftentimes, leading to a downward spiral of feeling disempowered and losing self-esteem.

What I'm passionate about is helping the less confident students find their calling and rebuild their self-esteem. This led me to put together a mnemonic device for how we can bring out the best in students, especially those students that really need some extra support. The IMPACT mnemonic is shown in the above picture.

My personal experience of feeling a sense of IMPACT with a teacher was when I took dance lessons outside of school. It not only helped me express myself, but it also gave me the confidence I needed to excel in school and in life.

We can make an impact in our students' lives by continue to encourage them in pursuing the things that they are good at. We should believe in all students and pay attention to their strengths. Once a student finds his or her own strength, he or she will contribute to our world for the greater good!