Friday, November 12, 2010

What does it take to be a Passionate Teacher??/

I was going through many of the blogs, but none of them popped out to me as much as Angela Maiers blog titled Get Ready for a Passion-Driven Conversation. She has wrote a couple of books and has also been researching and speaking out about the importance of passion when it comes to teaching. There are many people question what it takes to be a great teacher, and many different professors and articles state that the teacher has to be passionate about educating. Many teachers say they want to be a teacher because they enjoy working with children, but a great teacher has a passion for working with children.
Is there a common meaning behind the word, or does it mean something different to everyone? Can it be taught? What is it really? These are a few questions taht Angela states in her blog a long with many others when it comes to talking about passion. She provides many links for people to go out and look at and decide for themselves.
To me being passionate about teaching is that it is one of the only things in life that makes me truly happy. I have grown up working with children who were younger than me. My mother is a para professional and I have been going down to her room and working with students since I was in Middle school. I would go down during study halls and now I too sub as a paraprofessional. I also have worked at a daycare, lifeguard, swimming lesson instructor, tutor, religion teacher, been a big sister through the Big Brother/Big Sister program, and coached softball and cheerleading. I can honestly say that nothing is more satisfying to me than seeing a student have that "ah ha I got it" moment. I love seeing the progress and the steps that a student takes to get to where they are. I want to do anything that I can to help a student progress and keep progressing. To me, these ideas and many more are some of the ideas that lie behind passion in education.

3 comments:

  1. Emily,

    This is a great question to be considering now. If you are constantly pondering what it means, and what it takes to be an effective teacher then chances are you will become one. I have always found that the most effective teachers are the ones that are truly concerned about student academic achievement. To me that should be the reason everyone wants to become a teacher because that is our number one purpose in a school.

    Jarod Mozer

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  2. Emily,

    I see your passion about working with students. The thing that I see in some pre-service educators is that they love children but lack the pedagogical knowledge it takes to teach students essential concepts and skills. On the flip side, sometimes that passion for children is what drives the pre-service educators in learning pedagogy. The teaching-learning process is essential in being an effective educator.

    Billie

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  3. Welcome to the conversation! Being passionate is what matters most. As you stated so beautifully, students remember and our impacted forever by our passion not our knowledge or content!

    You are going to be an incredible teacher; one who's influence will live on beyond the time you are in the classroom!

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