A TEACHERS CREED

MY CREED

1. I believe that teaching is not a profession but a vocation that demands perseverance and a deep sense of commitment.

2. I believe that I am a co-worker with God, in the divine task of molding and establishing the young and growing minds and hearts entrusted to my care.

3. I believe that just as a lamp diffuses light, dispelling the surrounding darkness, so I too, as a teacher, have to diffuse understanding, knowledge and love to my students dispelling the darkness of ignorance and doubt.

4. I believe that as a teacher molding children for the 21st century, I must dare to be different in my methodology and approach, challenging their intelligence, stimulating their curiosity, exciting their imagination, and inculcating in them sound values.

5. I believe that every child is special and must be treated as such.

6. I believe that I must honor and respect the implicit pleas of every child to me, his teacher, to become what he can be.

7. I believe that I must not differentiate between my students, and that I must not show any personal preferences or dislikes.

8. I believe that I must not let my own problems, frustrations and anxieties color and affect my work and my attitude towards my students.

A Teachers Prayer
Lord, let me be just what they need. If they need someone to trust, let me be trustworthy. If they need sympathy, let me sympathize. If they need love let me love, in full measure. Let me not anger easily, Lord but let me be just. Permit my justice to be tempered in your mercy. When I stand before them, Lord, let me look strong and good and honest and loving. And let me be as strong and good and honest and loving as I look to them. Help me to counsel the anxious, crack the covering of the shy, temper the Rambunctious with a gentle attitude. Permit me to teach only the truth. Help me to inspire them so that learning will not cease at the classroom door. Let the lessons they learn make their lives fruitful and happy. And, Lord, let me bring them to you. Teach them through me to love you. Finally, permit me to learn the lessons they teach. Amen

Students prayer St. Thomas Aquinas

Creator of all things, true source of light and wisdom, origin of all being, graciously let a ray of your light penetrate the darkness of my understanding. Take from me the double darkness in which I have been born, an obscurity of sin and ignorance. Give me a keen understanding, a retentive memory, and the ability to grasp things correctly and fundamentally. Grant me the talent of being exact in my explanations and the ability to express myself with thoroughness and charm. Point out the beginning, direct the progress, and help in the completion. I ask this through Christ our Lord. Amen.

Plants are shaped by cultivation and men by education. .. We are born weak, we need strength; we are born totally unprovided, we need aid; we are born stupid, we need judgment. Everything we do not have at our birth and which we need when we are grown is given us by education.
(Jean Jacques Rousseau, Emile, On Philosophy of Education)