Friday, October 28, 2011

The Best Teacher You Ever Had

I don't pretend to be the world's greatest teacher, heck even a great teacher. But I am a new teacher and I'm trying. After a week orientation on ESL, a summer of experience teaching English in Italy, one coursebook and pat on the back later, I entered my classroom for the first time. I have officially switched sides. Being a teacher is not how I thought it would be. It's better. Being a teacher makes me respect the great teachers in my life even more than I thought possible. I have the best students in the world. After a placement test and classes changed, I had an old student approach me and grab my hand. He kissed it and touched it to his head. In Turkey, this is a sign of respect. It is how you would greet a grandparent or elder whom you respect.  It made my heart smile!

On a totally different note, teaching takes hours of behind the scenes work, especially in a class where you are fighting for them to understand you...in an TEFL environment. (Teaching English in as a Foreign Language) One of my classes speaks literally no English. My Turkish is getting better really fast because they only speak to me in Turkish, unless forced in an activity. I am translator, teacher, momma bear, actor, sponge, leader, guide, you name it, I probably play that role sometime in my teaching day. Teaching is one of the most difficult professions because of one thing, one single thing. In order to be a good teacher, it requires constant self-reflection. You have to know yourself and assess your strengths and weaknesses daily. If your kids aren't understanding you have to figure out if it is you, or them. Or both? How can I improve class? How can I motivate these college students who act like high-schoolers? How can I be better? God, it's demanding.

So here is where you come in. I want to know the best teacher you ever had. But here is the tough part- what do you think made them so good? (Especially if they were a foreign language teacher!) Please please let me know. It can be general things, or specific practices you noticed that particularly motivated you. I may or may not be attempting a research project analyzing motivations of different students in relation to their improvement. :) But help a girl out, I'm trying to change lives over here, geesh!

Special thanks to Mr. DeLeonardo and Mrs. Travisano, the two teachers who changed my life and made me the person I am today. Thank you. 

7 comments:

  1. First of all, you currently have the best, most qualified, profession for you right now. Sarah, you're a beast at what you're doing right now, you inspire people with your words of wisdom and you're not even an old woman! hehe
    Anyway, I believe you're probably doing an amazing job over there and these students probably die for you. Since you wanna know though I already see in you qualities of my best teacher. She was not only a teacher but she was a friend and made every lesson exciting. Not only school lessons but life lessons as well. If you portray yourself as a friend (with certain limitations of course) and not as strict authority students are less intimidated and will approach you easily (you already have this though). Charisma, class activities and most importantly laughs, are the most impacting. I always remember the funny moments about the lesson and the fun discussions where the teacher challenged us and everyone had different ideas. Fun while learning at the same time. Hope this helps but I already know, like I said, that you're a beast! =]
    Lily

    ReplyDelete
  2. Part of the reason I applied for an ETA was due to my German professor. Prof. Hamilton was always cheerful and ready to teach, which made coming to class at 9 AM every day of my last semester of college worth it. Even though it was only German 102, her joy in working with us was infectious. Always patient, her smile when you were able to correctly work out a point for yourself was reward in and of itself. The diligence and respect with which she treated us, her students, made us be diligent towards and respect the task of learning German. Sure, learning a new language can be hard work, and trying to speak it with someone who is fluent can seem embarrassing, but with Prof. Hamilton, it never was. She was a true master at making you feel that your education was her one goal. She was a true inspiration both as a student and now as a language teacher, and I think of her often.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Sarah, just wanted to say I love your blog and you write with such passion. Your posts have a lot of depth to them. As far as the best teacher I've ever had, it would be my Art History teacher. She made every lesson exciting, and used a lot of interesting visuals to keep all of the students engaged. She was extremely passionate about her students and made it a point to talk with each one of us individually throughout the semester. She also personalized a lot of her comments and really made us feel like we mattered inside and outside of the classroom. I still keep in touch with her to this day and I just know she genuinely cares and puts everything into her profession.

    ReplyDelete
  4. The best professor I have ever had (which I have ranted to you about before) is Professor Davarian Baldwin. He held the highest expectations for his students and demanded we move beyond our "Boston College" bubbles and apply what we are learning in class to our lives. He was dynamic and forced his students to engage in the material we were learning in an active, not just passive, way. We had intense class discussions and he would always push on what we were saying and never let us accept anything on face value. He said that we did not come to him as blank slates to be filled but as knowledge agents that need to apply what we know to what we are learning. He also had a booming voice like James Earl Jones, so try and work on that too.

    Love,
    Becky, best friend supportive of your blog

    ReplyDelete
  5. My favorite teacher was Mr Maloon. He always pushed us to be better but never stressed us beyond the limit he knew we could handle. He always said take a chance and move, live somewhere new and experience life - immerse yourself in your new adventure. Though he could be very stern He was a lot of fun and always reminded us of how important we all were. He was not only a teacher but a friend (with limitations of course) I always knew that it I needed to vent he would be their and give me guidance (most of the time having me figure it out for myself.)I ended up trying so many new things do to his encouragement and support. Knowing someone cares leaves the most impact in my opinion.

    ReplyDelete
  6. Prof K-C

    I forwarded your blog post to my sisters who are teachers and one of them had this to say:

    As far as your question regarding our best teachers - what comes immediately to mind is a professor of special education I had, Nancy Cavaretta, while I was going through an alternative certification education. She had lots of real-life experiences from her life as a teacher that she weaved into the classes. Her lessons were also all really well-organized and communicated - she had packets for each day with the content, so I never got the impression that she was shooting from the hip.

    I have my own thoughts, I'll send you them when I have more time to write! Love you, my little prof

    ReplyDelete

Search My Blog