Meeting the Students from District C

I've really liked how we've gotten to meet with many different people involved in District C from the teachers and administration to the students that we met last week. I was really excited to get to hear what they had to say in depth because when doing walkthroughs in classrooms, there isn't much of an opportunity to do that much talking to them besides a few questions here and there.  

As I said on the bus ride back to campus last week, I loved hearing what they wanted to see in a teacher. I also loved how enthusiastic they were about learning and pushing themselves to do the best work they possibly could so that they could make their families and themselves proud. It’s always great to have students like that, just like it’s great to have an enthusiastic teacher. Seeing someone excited about learning the material you have to teach is an awesome feeling, but at the same time, there are going to be students who are going to be more difficult to work with. I think that part of being a really good teacher is making sure the students learn, but also getting them excited about doing it. And like I said in my previous blog post, the more a teacher shows interest, attention and care towards a student, the easier it will be to figure out the best way to motivate them and help them learn in the best way possible. We’ve heard teachers say how important it is to know your students, and last week we heard it from the students themselves. One of them gave the example about how much he loved basketball, so his teacher tied examples in class to basketball for him.
 
There are plenty of teachers out there who, unfortunately, don’t take the time to get to know their students or help to push them to be the best student they can be. They stand at the front of the room, spew out the information and go home at the end of the day. But not only is this not helping the students learn, but the students can pick up on this attitude almost immediately. And if they can see that a teacher isn’t enthusiastic, doesn’t particularly want to get to know them, or doesn’t reach out to them, then they’re not going to want to push themselves in that class. I feel that the more respect the students and teacher have for each other and the more open and interested in each other and learning from each other they are, then more learning will occur.