Greetings:
It's National Novel Writing Month so I've been writing a lot lately. I'll probably tell you something about my story--and, more importantly, my plans for it--in a few weeks.
Speaking of writing, as you may recall, I wrote last week about some of the negative things I've seen teachers do. Here's my promised follow-up; today, I'll shed some light on some of the things that I believe good teachers do best.
Memorizing student’s names.
I’d like to thank the teachers that take the extra time to learn our names. It’s the icing on the cake that shows that they truly care.
A singing teacher of mine once got creative with this. Our class had somewhere between 80 to 100 students. He had to assign our seats so that we would be arranged by height and part during our musical performances. I noticed that he used this to his advantage and started calling us by name shortly thereafter.
Awarding Students with something tangible.
One thing that I liked about preschool was those boards where a teacher would put a sticker by our names for good conduct. I also remember Vacation Bible School where I would get candy or a soda for bringing a Bible to class or inviting a new visitor.
Man, those were the days.
Anyway, why did that go away over the years? I guess getting an “A” is good enough nowadays. I still miss the grade school award system.
Controlling the mood of a classroom.
Mr. Glenn, one of the best school teachers that I've met to this day, took a day off of our regular studies just to tell us about his life story. He wanted us to know exactly where he was coming from. From what he told us, it was apparent that he truly cared for us and honestly deserved our respect.
Any teacher who can control the mood of a classroom to his or her advantage gets the highest grade in my book.
Sincerely,
Me.
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