Incentiveness

Okay, so where would this world be without a little incentive? Without getting into the whole intrinsic motivation type, it is clear that people try to do something, for some reason. I believe most students have the incentive to

1. Get Good Grades
2. Make their parents happy (With Grades)
3. Get a Good Score on the ACT
4. Get into a good College
5. REPEAT 1 & 2
6. Get into good grad school/Med or Law school (if you're really shooting for the stars!)
7. REPEAT 1 & 2
8. Get good job
9. Find good spouse
10. Have 1.6 kids
11. Live in the burbs
12. Own a nice car
13. Own a vacation home
14. Retire with fortune
15. Squander money on grandchildren
16. Die

Now where in here does it say anything about the incentive to be happy? Or to learn something? I'd like to possibly teach my students to have the incentive to learn something in my class for a reason, to be able to apply what they've learned and maybe be happy learning something without the need for stress to follow 1-16.

Reflectiveness

When thinking about improving how I would teach, I think it would be most important to REFLECT on what I taught already. To continually improve my teaching it is necessary to build upon a base, and by reflecting on what exactly I had taught already, I believe that I can further enhance how I teach. To do this I think it would involve:

• Questions: Asking myself, students, and fellow teachers what I did:
• Right
• Wrong
• What could be improved?
• Practice: Take what I did and practice teaching it so I make sure how to understand it
• Honesty: Being honest with my self when reflecting on how I taught will help me truly understand what I need to change to help my students learn

Passion

I remember when I was in Physics one time and we got our teacher sidetracked (very easily done by the way) but anyways he began teaching us college and research level physics, but in a way that made it easy to understand. His passion for this subject was so much clearer than that of what we simply were learning from the textbook. His passion for teaching made all the students in the class more excited about learning and made the classroom a much more productive place.

Authenticity

To me, when you don't feel like yourself, like you are putting on an act, you are no longer being authentic. I think students can very easily see right through this act of faking authenticity. All it takes is one or two questions that aren't really known, but made up, for a student to see very clearly that the teacher really does not know what is going on. When a teacher is not being authentic, it is very easy for the students to follow in this act as well. Most commonly I believe when a teacher tries to put on an act to answer "why are we learning this?" It is very easy for the students to lose focus, because if the teacher obviously doesn't know why they are learning it, why should they?

Compassion

Through the compassion of two of my teachers from High School I was able to pursue a project that I was very interested in. I came up with the idea of replicating an experiment done by some researchers at UCLA, making an x-ray machine. The physics teacher at my school, along with the shop teacher, showed an understanding of what I was trying to do, and in my mind, showed me compassion. They helped me with my machine through the whole process. They were always available for questioning and I was never afraid to go to the them when I needed help. This compassion was very important for not just the success of the machine but my own self esteem when I thought I would not be able to succeed.

Respect

Respect, as defined in the dictionary, is a feeling of deep admiration for someone or something elicited by their abilities, qualities, or achievements. However, I think that respect can mean so much more than that. Respect can be a feeling for someone, simply for nothing. Respecting someone who you don't even know can be the hardest thing to do without knowing any of their abilities, qualities, or achievements. This issue can be seen very clearly in a classroom environment. A group of students can walk into a classroom without knowing that teacher ever before in their life, and be required and expected in fact to give them respect. So respect is so much more than just knowing someone, it's not knowing them as well. Respect needs to be very clearly established in a classroom environment, I don't know necessarily if not smiling till Christmas is always the best option. I believe it is important to establish yourself between someone's friend, and their mom/dad. Most people will respect their parents (at times) but maybe not listen to them, while they will also listen to their friends, but not always respect them going behind their back spreading rumors. If you can establish yourself as a person who needs to be listened to as well as respected by demonstrating good listening as well as teaching skills, you'll be able to smile in class without kids walking all over you.