Be the change you want to see…

The importance of engaging and focused work shows itself through the eyes of the students, who bask in your educational energy. This does not come without genuine learning and teaching, done by both student and teacher. If the teacher fosters an exploration of imagination and curiosity, the student is much more willing and able to take ownership and responsibility for their personal outcome.

To capture a students’ interest, a teacher must instill a level of confidence in the student that allows them to feel safe and free to express themselves in class. Once this interest is peeked, the student are able to experience a more satisfying learning experience. They are also able to extinguish negative self-talk or messages that might have held them back in the past. When students feel that they are worth your while, they create ties that bind them to the engaging learning, and allow them to recognize their individual successes. They develop a sense of power and worth that cannot be built or created without such support for learning. The service a teacher provides goes far beyond the confines of a classroom and extends into their personal life and self-beliefs about what is possible or them.

By making learning engaging, student become motivated, and the likelihood of their success increases exponentially. What greater sense of accomplishment can a teacher ask for than to foster love of learning and self in a classroom that carries over into other aspects of a students’ life.

Through development of a desire for daily learning to be satisfying, teachers foster attitudes in their students that offer them deeper insight into what they are capable of accomplishing.  

I want my students to feel my excitement for teaching. I want them to feel that there is no place that I would rather be than with them, in the moment, teaching with love and desire for them to grasp the concepts in the curriculum. I plan to seek out the most engaging strategies possible in order to keep their interests, and increase their overall desire to learn. I also plan on using differentiated learning strategies to capture their readiness level for the material being taught, so they can take as much with them as possible. I feel that the inclusion of lesson material that is specific for students finishing time, eagerness to learn, and attention level, makes the utmost difference in how much of a lesson actually sticks with them over time.

A lesson that is uniform to fit all students, and that has no variation of material content is like trying to put your students in a one-size-fits-all pair of jeans. It may work for some students, but the majorities needs will not be met. Thoughtful planning must be at the top of a teacher’s priority list in order to make the biggest difference possible for each of the students throughout the lessons taught. That is my ultimate goal as a teacher, to be sensitive to the needs of my students in a way that will allow them to bloom and grow into their potential. I understand that to do that, I must model and be that myself first.