Bring the Fire

It often happens to me that the things I swear I will NEVER do are what I end up enjoying. I claimed I would never play in an orchestra, go to the high school I graduated from, or go to school in the South, yet all of those things came to be in my life and were positive experiences that became very important to me. I should know by now not to make blanket “never” statements because they seem to play into the destiny of my life, and in my usual fashion, it’s happened again.

When I was younger, I decided I was never going to be a teacher. I also never thought I’d work with middle and high school students, but both of those things will become part of my reality in about two months. Of course, I’m at a point where I’ve had to eat my words because working as a teaching assistant is something I’ve wanted more than anything else for the past year, and I’m excited. Honestly, I’m also scared out of my mind. Since I’m technically a teaching assistant, it’s not like I’ve been training for this. It’s just me, and the experiences that made me pursue this opportunity in the first place, getting thrown off the deep end. That’s actually alright with me because I think sometimes the best way to learn is to do. I’m prepared to learn as I go, and even though mistakes are inevitable, what’s more important is how I deal with them.

In the last week, I’ve been lucky enough to discuss teaching with two people who shaped my high school experience positively. They both gave me welcome words of advice. The first was simple but so important: Start by learning all of your students’ names and something about them. If your students feel like you are really interested in them, they are more likely to invest in you. You have to make yourself accessible and make that connection to reach them. This ties into the other piece of advice nicely: You have to carry the passion for what you are teaching in you and figure out how you can help students understand why they too want to carry that passion. This is what I call “bringing the fire.” If you don’t like or don’t care about what you do, the students will know. It’s crucial to success that you come into class with a spark. It doesn’t matter how technically well you understand teaching methods if there’s not soul to back it up. The teachers I have admired the most have all had a passionate drive and that is what allows them to relate to and motivate their students to succeed. They want every student to understand why they love what they teach and so they go out of their way to make themselves relevant to even the most resistant students. This is the kind of teacher I want to be. The more you put in, the more you get out.

Deine,
N*