key to being a great teacher – Dear Teacher/Love Teacher

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Dear Teacher,

If you have been teaching for any length of time, you know one thing to be true above most others…there are no silver bullets. There is no “one thing” that will be able to fix all things in your classroom or for your students. There is not a magic teaching pill that will cause all students to learn, grow, and find success.

No, you no the very real reality that teaching, learning, and education take work. And I am not going to go against that. Not one bit.

There is much truth in the fact that you have got to be an active learner yourself and find out best practices and new ideas. You have to practice those best practices. You have to know your content. You have to be creative. You have to figure out new ways to plan and facilitate learning in your classroom. You have to keep up with technology and how to use it as a tool to help students learn more effectively. Speaking of students, you have to do the very challenging and messy work of getting to know them and building rapport and relationships with them. The same goes with your students’ parents, other teachers and staff, and administration.

Teaching is work. Difficult work. Rewarding work, true, but hard work.

Um, so far this post is pretty much the opposite of your title…where is the easy button?

Everything said so far is what we know in our teacher reality. But…there is one thing that does make all of this a lot easier and will increase student engagement in your class.

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That easy button is….wait for it….

Oh no. Is this one of those times where you give the big build up and the one answer is me?

You guessed it. The easy button for making some of the hard parts of teaching and to increase engagement is, indeed, YOU!

Just like all of the other times I have set you up for a big secret in education, the key is you. Something inside of you and about you can unlock the easiness to making tough things seem less tough. One of my favorite quotes of all time is from Maya Angelou:

If you don’t like something, change it. If you can’t change it, change your attitude.

There is so very much that we can change about education and what needs to happen in our classroom. We can’t change the content we are required to teach. We can’t change the students (not directly, at least). We can’t change their parents. We can’t change their home environments. We can’t change expectations from administration, districts, and the state (again, not directly). We can’t change what needs to happen for teaching and learning to truly happen in our classroom.

No, there is not very much that we can change in education…but we can change ourselves.

There is a lot of ways that we can change our attitudes as teachers, but I want to just focus on one…above all else, we need to love what we do!

I am not saying that we have to love all of the bureaucracy, paperwork, and struggles with the harsh realities that our students have to deal with…no, I am not sure that anyone should love that. I am saying that we need to love the fact that we get to teach students and open them up to wonders of the world and the awesomeness of fighting to understand something new and the thrill of the moment when it all clicks. We also get to have the hope of being a part of changing the lives of our students for the better and helping them realize how learning new things changes possibilities! That is what we live for. That is why we teach.

We need to love what we do!

We have to be excited about what we are teaching in our classes. If you don’t love all of your content, be excited about the way that you are teaching it! Don’t love how you teach something? TEACH IT DIFFERENTLY! You are in control of that. You have got to find a way to love what you teach and how you teach it! You have to! This is what makes students take notice and want to be engaged in the process of learning.

It is our passion and love of the teaching/learning process that draws students in. That is the key. That is the easy button. Our engagement in the process makes them not want to miss out and be a part of whatever has you so excited!

Think about the great teachers you have had or that you know…they were passionate about what they do, weren’t they? I bet the answer is yes.

Teachers who love and are passionate about teaching breed students who love and are passionate about learning.

Teacher, love what you do! Let it show. Make it obvious. The students will want a sip of what you are drinking, I promise! They will be engaged!

You are awesome. I bet I was preaching to the choir the whole time, wasn’t I? You do love what you do. You aren’t afraid to show it. Remember to keep that passion for teaching and learning going! Help students be ignited by your fire and their passion for learning will be contagious to others! Keep on loving what you do and keep on teaching, Teacher!

Love, Teacher

Dear Teacher,

We live in an interesting time to be in the field of education, do we not? This is not a set up to talk about the trials and tribulations of being a teacher or administrator in this day-and-age, though there are a lot of difficult and harsh realities for us right now. There is another side to being an educator right now…

Resources.

We have some of the most amazing resources available to us. Some teachers have more than others, but we all have more than teachers had at any time in the past. We have the internet (if not readily accessible to student, you have access to it for planning…you are reading a blog right now, aren’t you?). We have technology (very few teachers do not have the availability of some kind of tech). We have each other (we can connect with educators around the world and collaborate and learn from each other). The list is endless.

We have so much.

Yet, do we have more great teachers than ever before? I am not sure about that. It seems like we should, but there is probably the same average amount of great teachers as there ever has been (which is a large number…I am not saying this to knock education). Great teachers will always be great teachers…no matter the resources.

So how do great teachers become and stay great teachers?

There are A LOT of factors here…

Studying education and the latest research
Workshops and staying in touch with other great teachers
Focusing on students more than content
Knowing when to teach more and when to teach less
Mastering the art of facilitation
And so many other things…

But there is one secret ingredient that I think matters the most and is common among most of the great teachers in history, and it is amazingly simple.

The secret to you being a great teacher is you.

What?

Great teachers know themselves. They know their strengths and weaknesses. They work on the weaknesses and play to their strengths. They do not deny who they are as people, and this lets their passions for teaching and for life play themselves out in the classroom. Their zeal for what drives them pushes students to strive harder and become interested and engaged. Because great teachers are keyed into who they are, their dreams are big and they fight to achieve them. They also know what they need and go after those things…for this reason fund-raising seems easy for them and “personal PD” is not a new idea because it has been a theme of their lives!

Great teachers are aware of themselves and this makes the more aware of their students and what needs to happen in their classroom.

Resources are not what make great teachers great…great teachers make all resources great because they are keenly aware of how to use them. The type of resource or school “realities” are not limitations…they do not really know limitations!

Great teachers know who they are and do not hide it.

Great teachers share their passions and interests and make them a part of their instruction.

Great teachers have a sense of what they need and this gives them a sense of student needs.

You are a great teacher…you just have to get to know yourself to bring the great teacher out!

You are the key to you being a great teacher!

You are a much greater teacher than you think you are! We can all be greater…so lets work on it. You are amazing! I know you are a great teacher! You are making a difference because you are completely awesome! Keep working at your greatness and keep on teaching, Teacher!

Love, Teacher