The Teacher's Key: Finding the Answers for Learning

Have you ever heard the saying, "He has flipped his lid!" That is what Elijah did when he ran and begged God to let him die. God came alongside him and co-regulated him back to reason.  Today we talk about what is happening to our nervous system when that happens. 

God gave us all a nervous system. He knows our frame; he remembers we are dust. Thank you, Brooke Cosby. This is wonderful information.

Jonah was angry, sulking, overheated outside the city. God appointed a plant to shade him and ease his discomfort before pressing the hard question about his heart. God addressed the body's misery and the heart's sin — in that order. Thank you, Brooke Cosby for your insight!

Do you ever just want to get away and hide? Elijah did even to the point he begged God to let him die.  Thankfully God knows our frame and that we are dust. Listen to how God co-regulated Elijah and modeled for us how we can help our students when they are so dysregulated they stop thinking straight and can only fight, flee, or freeze.  Thank you to Brooke Cosby for our Wired for Stillness Series.

"He knoweth our frame; he remembereth that we are dust" Ps. 103:14. God knows our weaknesses when He calls us to be still and know He is God. Do we recognize our students' weaknesses when we call on them to be still? I am so thankful that God knows my frame!

A big thank you to Brooke Cosby for finding the answers from God's Word how we are Wired for Stillness! Yet we have an Amazing God that knows we live in a fleshly body. 

When you think about school, students are there for 6-8 hours a day. Every student needs to feel safe, relaxed, and welcomed every day.

Jesus knew His audience when he taught them. He knew their modalities of learning and how they would learn best. I believe this is why he sometimes taught with sand or multiplied food for the kinesthetic and tactile learners. Sometimes he taught with parables for the visual learners that need that representation/pictorial learning. He simply spoke sermons for the auditory listeners. He also taught...

Psalms 25:4-5 is a prayer of David asking God to teach him. He asks God 3 different ways to teach him. Jesus often used the teaching model in Ps, 25:4-5. Shew me, teach me, lead me. 

Just like teachers, students need to have a vision! They need a reason to engage in the lesson. At our school we call it a hook. What are you using to catch your students' attention?

The Bible tells us that where there is no vision, the people perish. Great schools and church programs have a vision. Great classrooms have a vision. Set goals for you and your students and help them to know and reach those goals. 

Here is some practical advice for establishing a peaceful classroom. Tune in to Faith Music Radio during the eleven2one show every Tuesday at 12:30.    https://www.facebook.com/eleven2one     

Sometimes as teachers we need to explicitly teach executive functioning skills or even set up a plan that helps students follow through on what these skills look like while in action. Time management and task initiation skills are easy to implement steps and strategies for students to follow.

Do we set our classrooms and management systems in such a manner that we model planning while teaching students strategies for prioritizing important information. Helping our students to plan and prioritize will set them up for success.

1 Corinthians 14:40 "Let all things be done decently and in order." So many of our students could find more success in the classroom if they only had the skill of organization! We can be the teacher that can help them organize and hold them accountable while they are in our classrooms. Thank you to Sarah Hudon for all the work she did in organizing these lessons to help teachers know how to help o...

Executive Functioning skills are key to student success. As teachers we can realize that some students through no fault of their own need help while their EF skills are still developing. Thank you to Sarah Hudon for putting these resources together so we can be better teachers! 

Executive functioning skills can interfere with the learning process and is critic for students to receive help developing skills. Thank you to Sarah Hudon for organizing and providing this information helping teachers and parents gain knowledge about executive functioning skills.

Executive functions help us to plan, organized and regulate our learning and behavior. God gave us the first executive functioning skills to help us after salvation. We find that in the Fruit of the Spirit. He changes our thoughts to love, joy, and peace. He also changes our behaviors to longsuffering, goodness, kindness, faithfulness and temperance.    Join me as we discover how some students nee...

Students do not always avoid a task simply because they do not want to do the work. Sometimes they can be embarrassed by the fact that they do not understand the task or simply do not have the skills to perform the task. Teaching our students to walk in truth includes them understanding that they can do hard things and they can work through their weaknesses instead of running from them.

One reason for students to misbehave is to seek attention. Mrs. Evans used to say, “Why can’t we just give people what they need?” We just need to decide that some students just need more attention. Go ahead and give it to them. Don’t make them seek it. Then teach them how to appropriately seek the attention they need. Teach them how to ask for extra time they need or how to wait and get it later....

We can recognize obvious reasons students disobey, like defiance, rebellion, and just plain ole disobedience or foolishness. But there are some reasons some children actually have a problem with self-regulating. This is where we can help students walk in truth by acknowledging the problem and using scripture and strategies to overcome their struggles. Walking in truth is not being perfect. It is k...

The Lead me part of our model is the abstract teaching and leading students in their own ability to study and learn.

Jesus used pictorial or representation teaching when He met with Nicodemus and related being born again to our physical birth. We can help students learn with charts, graphs, graphic organizers, and pictures. Some students need to "see" what they are learning with the help of visual aids.

Jesus taught using the concrete method when He fed the 5,000, put mud on the eyes of the blind man, or perform the many miracles during His teaching. We certainly cannot perform miracles like Christ, but we can use concrete items for students to touch, feel or taste for learners that need to use their senses to learn.

Did you know God's Word is full of methods for teaching! Psalms 25:4-5 has three methods that Jesus models for us in the New Testament. Shew me; teach me; lead me. Following Jesus's example, we can see where he used concrete, representative or pictorial, and abstract methods depending on who he was teaching! He knew His audience!