back to school night thoughts

Back to school night was last night and it got me to thinking about the paper and caused me to make several revisions. It really opened up the chance for me to see who is a good teacher. It is interesting to see how the teachers affect the students and their parents. Some teachers were very excited about what they were talking about and the parents came all psyched up to their next class talking about how interesting the last teacher was. Today, I watched as several of those same students came in and they were also psyched. I asked them about their teacher before this class and they mentioned how passionate they were and how great the lesson was. They had a fun class, and often nine times out of ten they also learnt something that was practical. A few were just happy because they had a sub or they had a lot of sugar. The opposite happened as well some teachers talked for two minutes and then said talk amongst yourselves, those teachers got less enthusiasm and the same thing is reflected in the students as well. They say that teacher is not engaged enough and therefore neither are they. Yet a third situation happened where a teacher talked but it was so dull that the parents were even falling asleep. Everyone talks about how boring this teacher is and when you come into the classroom and look how those people come out and into your class they are tired and almost bored of everything. It makes it even harder to get them interested in their next class. It is like they have been turned off from learning. Good teaching is like a disease when a teacher is a good teacher they spread the joy of learning to their students and encourage them to learn throughout the day. It causes a type of high that really elevates their class participation throughout the day.