This is my first year as an undergraduate on the track of becoming a high school teacher. Not only have I made the following realizations through my classes, but also through the Golden Apple program which allowed me to teach and mentor in the Chicago Public Schools over the summer, and through the twenty class periods of observations which I completed as a requirement for my Inquiry to Teaching class.
Since I am only a student learning about teaching my views of the actual career may not be as accurate as what the job really entails, but I do know that when I become a teacher I will want to make my job interesting every day by doing these five things:
1. Provide a safe environment for students to learn in.
Before students can even think about learning, they need to be able to forget about the problems which they face outside of the classroom. Students need to be treated with the same respect which any adult deserves. A student who feels safe and respected is a student who will cooperate and learn.
2. Lead my students on the path to success.
Success in this sense does not have to mean excellent grades or test scores, but a preparation for the world outside of school. Not all students go to college, but it is important as a teacher to prepare students for any future which they may pursue. It is not easy to become an adult so it is important that students are molded into adults during their high school years.
3. Give students a reason to come to school.
Not every student is going love English, Math, Science, and History. But as the teacher you don’t want the students to despise your class. A teacher has to make the content interesting which shouldn’t be too hard because high school teachers love their content. So show the students why your content is so interesting. Teaching and learning are such boring terms for how to run the classroom. How about engaging, discussing, analyzing, experimenting, observing, those are fun terms.
4. Continue to adapt and bring new ideas into the classroom.
Teaching does not have to get boring after 10 years, actually it shouldn’t get boring. The world changes all the time and something new happens every day. Bring it into your classroom. For example, with the primaries occurring and the elections around the corner, you could have the coolest U.S. government class ever, talking about how primaries work as the students watch them in action, having classroom debates on the candidates, and running an election within the classroom. Also a big event in Literature, the sequel to "To Kill A Mockingbird" came out, write a short unit on that series. It’s also a great idea to follow a famous author on Facebook or Twitter and have weekly updates on what they have been writing. This can actually get very interesting.
5. Learn new things for the rest of your life.
Like I said before high school teachers love their content and there is no way that they are going to learn every single detail about it in college. Make it a goal to learn and teach something new every year. There is no set list of what you have to teach as long as you are hitting the standards. It makes your job more interesting and it just may interest the students. It is also possible that the students will teach you something new. Students can bring in all kinds of cool ideas and opinions when they are motivated to.
This list is only a couple of ideas which make for a great high school teacher. As long as the goal involves making the classroom an interesting and welcoming environment then it qualifies. Remember, in order to make the job fun and interesting for yourself, you need to make it fun and interesting for the students as well. Teaching doesn’t have to get tiring.
