What do you remember from your classes? Do you remember how to diagnose a sentence or how to form the past tense in a language? It’s very possible that you do, but I imagine there are some things you remember better. Here are a few things more students remember than the material we teach.
They remember
How we made them feel. Are you the teacher who saw the potential or talent and nurtured it? You may be the first one who did. What if a student has a dream or a passion but doesn’t see the possibilities or his talent. How huge is it to unlock that dream. It could be as simple as making them feel special and showing them they are capable.
When we find the help they need. Parents don’t always see the same thing we see in the classroom. We might see that they learn differently and need some additional resources to find success. If we can find those resources for them it is a game changer.
Helping them live a dream. As a language teacher, I felt it was my job to plan trips to France for my students. I always loved seeing the joy and excitement they found in travel. I remember when two girls started crying when they saw the Eiffel Tower. They both told me they were crying because they thought they never would have the chance to see it.
Fun activities. Learning doesn’t always have to be serious. Incorporating fun events will make them love your subject even more. At Christmas, I started a tradition where the entire French program and their families would come to a potluck dinner so we could have our version of the French Christmas dinner, Le Réveillon. It created a family atmosphere and when everyone went home the janitor helped me clean up while I washed the dishes.
Our support. Learning becomes easier when you know you can take risks because someone will help you succeed. When our students know we want them to do well they try harder.
We have all found ourselves standing in front of a class while we teach passionately about the new material when we realize that no-one is really listening. In several minutes when you begin an activity to practice what you have been trying to teach them, the questions will begin. “What are we doing?” “I don’t understand how to do this.” “Have we done this?”My favorite example of this happened last year. Here is the exchange that occurred;
Me: O.k. put the paper in your folder.
Student 1: Mrs. Bonn, do we put the paper in our folder?
Me: Put the paper in your folder.
Student 2: Mrs. Bonn, what should we do with the paper?
This actually went on for another few minutes. Thankfully, I was able to see the humor, but it also made me think about how much time I waste when students are not paying attention. All of these questions could have been avoided if the students had been listening. There are ways to keep their attention though. Follow the following strategies and you may have more success keeping them focused.
You have to make it about them.
No matter what you are teaching, you have to find a way to tie it into their lives to make it meaningful. Ask your students questions about themselves while tying it into the material that you are teaching. If you can make that connection, you will have their attention.
Deal with the emotions first
Pay attention when your students are entering your room. It is fairly easy to pick up on any raw emotions that may flare up during class and turn your lesson plan that you worked on until midnight into mush. Try to diffuse the emotions before they even happen by addressing them. Ask simple questions such as “Is everything o.k.?” Ignoring obvious emotional upheaval is like sticking your head in the sand.
Use hands on activities
Do activities that involve everyone. The more students who are actively involved, the more focused attention you will see.
Get them up and moving
It is difficult for anyone to sit in a chair for a long period of time. Find activities where your students will be up and moving around. Place information that they need around the room and make them travel to different stations to find the information.
Use your presence
Move around the room and change your voice level to hold the interest in the room.
Use Visuals
This is an age where children use visual entertainment. We can use it to our advantage to teach them. I love saving interesting magazine pictures and turning the lesson plan into solving a puzzle about the picture.
Teaching is a profession that requires flexibility and a sense of humor. These two
qualities are necessary because the moment when a teacher thinks his expectations are
clear, his lesson plans well thought out, and his classroom management plan impeccable,
something inevitably happens that turns everything upside down. Flexibility is necessary
when this happens to be able to think on your feet and come up with a plan b and
a solution to whatever the current problem is. A sense of humor is necessary to avoid
any frustration when the best laid plans don’t work out. It helps to be able to laugh when
you are having a problem that was not discussed in any of your teaching classes.
Teaching is full of these ironies. Here are some examples of the ironies of teaching.
Your school has adopted a new textbook which comes with a variety of supplemental activities. Your principal is certain you will be a better teacher now that you have a book with all the bells and whistles. Unfortunately, you have to read three 1,000-page instructional manuals to know how to use any of them.
You spend four hours the night before a class preparing a great activity for the internet only to find when you enter the class that the server is down and the internet is not available.
You go to a great workshop on ways to use a projector in your classroom. When you return to class the next day, you discover that the school’s only projector has been broken and there are no imminent plans to fix it.
You prepare a special speech for parents’ night, and you put it in a folder so that you will not lose it. When it is time for your speech, you open up your folder to find that you are staring at your daughter’s kindergarten report.
You have a strict policy about the students turning in work on time, but you cannot seem to finish grading the report that they gave you a month ago.
You stay up until two a.m. writing a report on the effect of sleep deprivation on an individual’s work habits.
You have only one period for planning, grading, going to the bathroom, yet administrators are amazed that you have not replied to the e-mail that they sent five minutes ago.
A copy of your exams is due in the office in an hour, but every copier in the school has broken down at the same time.
A parent writes you a four-page e-mail which takes half of your planning period to read and wants to ask you if you have some extra time to meet with her so she can tell you everything that she just told you in the four-page e-mail.
You have five preps of full classes, and you also help with extracurricular activities. A colleague with two preps and small classes decides to tell you how overwhelmed she feels with all the work.
You are in the middle of exam week; your spouse is on a business trip and two of your children’s schools call and report that your children are ill and need to be picked up immediately. You try to rejoice that at least the third one is o.k. and then the cell phone rings.
You plan an amazing, stimulating lesson plan, but when you enter your class, you realize that last night the basketball team didn’t arrive home from a tournament until midnight and a major English paper is due today. Drooling zombies is the best you can hope for as an audience.
Teachers deal with a myriad of situations daily. Some of them are frustrating
and some of them are rewarding. No matter what the situation, it is the teacher who can
pull plan b out of the hat and then laugh at what happened who will be the one who
After teaching for forty years, if I had to give a new teacher ten tips to be a great teacher, here is what I would suggest.
Know your students. Know their names, their interests, and what motivates them. Ask them questions and show an interest in them. Show them that they matter and that you see them. When you do that, you can convince them they have value and they are special. When a student feels comfortable in your class and has a sense of belonging, teaching becomes easier. Two moments that were special for me were when parents let me know I had made their children feel special. I had a student named Guleus who was one of those multi-talented children, it is a privilege to know. After four years when I met his parents, I raved about him, showed some videos of contest presentations and described how wonderful he was. What parent doesn’t want to know if their child made a difference? Sophie was another student who will always be in my heart and was grossly underestimated in high school. At graduation, her mom introduced me to the family by saying, “This is Sophie’s person.”
Meet them where they are. When a new year starts, assess where your students are and gradually move them to where you need them to be. Expecting everyone to be stellar after day one is setting everyone up for stress and failure. It’s a marathon not a sprint.
Be a role model for them. If you expect them to do their homework, you have to do yours as well. Correct assessments in a timely manner, communicate well, keep grades updated, and listen to your students.
Don’t give up on anyone. School isn’t always the spot where someone is going to flourish. You never know when someone who struggles in your class might be your biggest success.
Cultivate relationships in the greater school community. It takes a village to be a good teacher so be kind to your colleagues and the administration. Build relationships with parents and local organizations that can support your teaching. Every Christmas, I hosted a French Christmas dinner for everyone in the French program. I remember the first year when I said to bring your whole family and one girl looked at me with wide eyes and said, “Madame, I have five siblings!” Everyone was welcome, we made it potluck so parents could show their cooking skills, and it created a feeling of family. Find your marigolds, the people who make you smile.
Be professional. Show up on time, do your work, be a team player, and be positive.
Give your best. It’s not enough to do the minimum expected. The students are counting on you, so do your best.
Build boundaries. You need to also take care of yourself, so make sure your students and parents know where those boundaries are.
Keep a sense of humor. This probably should have been number one because there will be days when everything goes horribly wrong like the day I was walking across the floor making eye contact with a student who had asked a question. I forgot about the plastic craft box on the floor and I stepped in it while wearing platforms and a dress. My foot slid out from under me and I went down hard. I jumped back up, threw my hands in the air and said, “Whooo! I’m okay!” but the students were horrified. I still laugh about that moment.
Give yourself some grace. A great teacher doesn’t have to be perfect!
I had no idea what a wild ride teaching would be for me. It allowed me to travel the world, develop life-long friendships, and learn life-changing lessons. I hope I was able to teach my children half as much as what they taught me. Here are a few of the life lessons I learned.
Respect is so important. At the beginning of each school year, I spoke with my students about what my expectations were. In that conversation I mentioned how important respect was to me. I told them I would show them respect and I expected the same in return. Respect means to me that you see the value in someone. You appreciate who they are and how the person behaves, and what the person does to help you.
Everyone wants to feel valued, and respect is a step in that direction.
Never give up on someone. I remember working so hard with one boy, but he couldn’t seem to understand the concepts I was showing him. His final exam would determine whether he passed or failed, and I was worried about him. He told me before the exam he had studied everything, and he thought he was ready. As I graded his exam, I realized that something had clicked for him. He passed! You never know when someone is a blink away from success.
Relationships are key. I realized that relationships were more important than my material when I was teaching in Massachusetts at a boarding school. The connections I made there with students continue today and are more important to me than how much of my subject they remember.
Relationships mean memories. At my last school, I held a Christmas dinner at school for all the families and students in the French program. It was a chance for everyone to come together as a family, and the memories from those events will always make me smile. One night, a family brought a small piano and after dinner, we played and sang Christmas carols.
I also enjoyed cleaning up after dinner. After all the chaos of the dinner, it was nice to have some quiet. The janitor, Daniel, would help me carry the dirty dishes to the teacher’s lounge, and he helped me wash them and put them away. It was always so pleasant to spend that time with him.
Positivity can change an outcome. On the first day of school, I always spoke with my students about the power of positivity. I told them they needed to stop saying things like, “I’ll probably fail.” They needed to use positive phrases. I had a demonstration using positivity and negativity that was always effective. I continued to show them what positivity could do throughout the year, but the best moment was in my fourth period A.P. class when everyone was hungry. I said, “I’m going to walk into the teacher’s lounge and there is going to be a huge pizza sitting there. (Anything out on the table was for sharing.) I walked into the lounge and there was a huge pizza. I walked back into my room laughing to shouts of, “No way!”
Be an encourager. Everyone needs a cheerleader. Lift people up with encouraging words or a smile. The effect can be amazing.
Keep a sense of humor. There are days when it seems as if nothing is going right. Those are the days you should laugh and hope that things change for the better. It doesn’t do any good to let the hard moments pull you down. If you can laugh in the middle of a mess you might teach someone else to do the same and it is a valuable skill to know.
Be kind. You have no idea what burden someone is carrying, so give some grace when someone acts a little off and offer help when you can. At my last school, we were allowed to pray with our students, so I always asked for prayer requests before we started. That allowed me to see if someone was struggling and why.
Find your marigolds. We all need a few people we know we can count on to be kind and to be on our side. Those are your marigolds, and they are precious.
Teach more than your subject. Life is so much more than how well someone can memorize facts. Students are watching you as a role model. You have the power to teach some valuable lessons about being a good human being.
Be a safe haven. I received two compliments which I value above all else because they told me that I was accomplishing something that was very important to me. The first was from a sub who sat in my class until I had to leave for a dentist appointment. The next day she was at lunch, and she said, “I have never felt such a presence of God in a classroom before.” The second was last year when a former student went to dinner with me and said, “You were a safe haven for so many of us.” Those two comments mean the world to me because I think everyone needs a safe place to land.
Don’t strive for balance. Maybe someone has figured out how to balance a full-time job and a family, but we were living in chaos most of the time, but it was a happy chaos. If your house is messy and your laundry isn’t always done, give yourself grace.
Ask for help. Delegate some tasks to others and ask for help when you are overwhelmed.
Accept different perceptions. People see things differently and need different approaches to understand certain things. Try to accept those different views.
Have fun. Probably the most important point is to have fun with what you do. Enjoy the moments.
Mistakes are never fun, but you have never failed at something as long as you learn something from the mistakes. What are the greatest life lessons you have learned because of something that went wrong? Here are a few of mine.
A failure to fit in. I grew up in a town where there were two very distinct classes. You were wealthy or you were not. My family was not, but when it was my turn to go to school, my parents decided to spend the money to send me to private schools. The weekly bomb threats at the public school had something to do with the decision. I didn’t have expensive clothes or a fancy house. I was oblivious to the difference between myself and most of my classmates until one day when a girl said, “What does your dad do?” I replied, “He owns the local gas station.” She looked at me with utter disgust and said, “What are you doing here?” I answered, “The same thing you are.” I tried to act like it didn’t bother me, but her words hurt.
The failure to fit in made me a better person though. I am kinder because of it, and I do my best to make people feel welcome and included.
Parenting fails. I don’t know of anyone who is the perfect parent, and I’m sure we all make mistakes. I have certainly made my share. I will say though that parenting has taught me patience and the importance of apologizing when I’m wrong. It has also taught me not to judge others when my perfect hat keeps slipping.
Relationship Fiascos. I have had a few unfortunate friend relationships when even though all the signs were there saying it was a toxic relationship I kept trying to make it work. I now know that I need to surround myself with people who I enjoy and admire and who feel the same about me. Life is too short for it to be constantly filled with drama.
There are so many more examples, but I’m sure you see the point that although you might think something you did was a mistake or a failure, it might teach you a valuable life lesson.
Jennifer’s writing 