Response to "Etre et Avoir"

In watching “Etre et Avoir” this past Sunday, I found myself noticing how much patience teaching really requires. From his tenure, it would seem that Monsieur Lopez has mastered this, and it my hope that in my weeks teaching this January, I will be able to grasp this skill as well. Lopez, it seems from what I saw in the movie, never lost his temper, even with the more difficult children, but instead helped them to figure out their problems calmly and patiently. I saw also that Lopez wasn’t teaching to hear the sound of his own voice as some teachers do, but instead was constantly asking questions of his students and taking the time to listen and reflect on their answers. He also wasn’t too tough on any one student, but was stern enough to show them all that he was indeed their teacher, and they would have to follow his instructions and keep their promises to him. The overall sense I got by the end of the movie then was that Lopez balanced all the right “ingredients” in his teaching method and it is my hope that in doing the same this January, I too will be adored in a similar manner by at least a few of the students at the Gandhi Ashram.

Seeing Lopez work with the younger children on their penmanship also got me thinking about whether or not this might be something we need to work on with the younger students at the Ashram during our English classes. His idea of writing a word and then having the children copy it seems like it would be applicable if necessary. I also thought that having students critique each other’s penmanship was a good idea too, if only to mix things up a little bit.