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Falun Dafa Made Me a Better Teacher

Oct. 8, 2004 |   By a practitioner from China

(Clearwisdom.net) Falun Dafa has changed me, making me an excellent teacher.

In doing my work, when I was able to put down my attachment to myself, my attachments to showing off, to reputation and personal gain, I become able to think of things from a higher perspective. What on the earth do I work for? What can I do for the students? The level of my teaching has also become higher and higher for the same reason. After listening to my class lecture, our supervisor said, "You completely understand the new concepts in education reform and carry them through your teaching practice. You are an excellent teacher." As a matter of fact, this change has come about solely through my practice of "Truthfulness-Compassion-Forbearance." In the process of my practicing Dafa, I have become more and more reasonable and clear-minded, able to see the essential parts of the problems better and better. Then, better methods came up in my class teaching, which looked and sounded "new" to others.

I was once vexed at why some kids could not succeed in higher grades since I taught them exactly the same way as I did to students with good grades. Later in my cultivation of Dafa, I suddenly realized that any child's grades, high or low, are not absolutely related to his intelligence, but instead it was related to other personal factors like their attentiveness and patience. Furthermore, I came to understand that the state of mind of students is very similar to that of cultivators. Students who appeared to pay particular attention to study rarely attracted outside interference since their mentalities are relatively stable.

Within two months I had realized the above truth. However, it took a foreign educator fifty years to realize this truth, having done many experiments. Now, I have a more peaceful and more benevolent mentality with which to teach kids how to be good people. In this, I am being responsible for their future, and not just paying attention to my personal success and gain, like I did before.

I used the principles which I had realized in studying Falun Dafa, to inspire students, telling them: there are two little persons in your body. One of them is light and bright, very kind and tolerant, and loves people very much around you; another one is dark, loves fighting and cursing people. However, you should remember, only that light little person is truly yourself, while the dark one is not. Then, when someone is bullying you, that dark little person makes you angry, telling you "beat him up"! If you follow this, won't it be a mistake? Make sure that you remember to reject it. Gradually, several kids in my class who fought and cursed their schoolmates changed a lot and their grades also went up. The atmosphere in my class is also better. Even if a problem does come up, I can solve it more reasonably.

Our principal said that I am an excellent teacher. But this "excellence" appeared only after I started practicing Falun Dafa. Before then, I treated kids in a rude way, which makes me feel shocked and ashamed whenever I recall it. I know that if I had not practiced Falun Dafa I might have made a group of kids live in a negative state, teaching them to complain all the time and be depressed.

I have visited some psychology websites. A psychotherapist talked about the joys and sorrows in his profession. Experience made him finally realize that a psychotherapist must be peaceful and friendly, and help patients with a peaceful and friendly mentality. Having read his research articles, I felt a little sad. After nine years of hard research, he came to understand the above truth, which I realized in reading Zhuan Falun two years into my cultivation. Furthermore, what I learned is something more profound. I learned that medicine is not needed at all to cure psychological diseases, and that a more direct method is available to find the root of a psychological disease. It is my knowledge of psychology that I have used to clarify the truth to one of my colleagues.

I have a student who recently transferred to my class recently. When I clarified the truth to him, he rejected it. However, I have been patient and gradually influenced hm by example. I thought that I must have some problems since otherwise he would not have rejected the truth. Later, he wrote a composition with the title of "My good teacher." One paragraph was added to the end: Teacher, September 10 is our Teachers' Day and I will give you a sentence. "You are the great sea and I am only a small boat, which can never go out of this vast sea." I was really moved then because this reminded me of our Teacher.