Teaching at any level requires an energy level many people do not have. Teachers don’t even have it at the end of many long days. People who don’t understand this like to mention vacation days and summers off, usually with “that look” on their faces. They don’t understand. When teachers get home, they’ve got all the home duties PLUS a good four hours of grading, preparing, and planning. I’m sure there are teachers, somewhere, that go to bed before midnight with everything done while still finding time to participate in their own family’s doings and getting all those household chores done. I personally don’t know any, but they’re no doubt out there.

Teaching – done right – isn’t an 8-hour day. It’s not even a 12-hour day for some of us.

How many people would willingly put up with some of the stuff teachers have to put up with? I mean besides you uppity folk who throw summer in our faces, and who can’t understand why another adult would not appreciate the adorable way Corralleighna stomps her foot, scratches, and uses Uncle Daddy’s cuss words in that little baby voice when she doesn’t get her way? So cute.

Teaching- done right- is standup. Every time the bell rings, the teacher has a new audience. Each audience is different and must be approached and handled individually. The better classrooms are like an interactive Rocky Horror midnight showing; there is as much action from the audience as from the headliners. However, just as a good interactive audience knows when to sit quietly and wait for instructions or permissions, a good classroom knows when to do the same. Badly behaved audience members are escorted OUT; what a shame our badly behaved class members don’t get the same. But I digress.

Key word there:  interactive.  A demo is not interactive.  A demo is just a demo.  Students should be interactive participants, not deadpan watchers of a demo. (Unless the next step is interaction.)  Instruction, participation, interaction, and then the student does the demo all by himself/herself, with full understandingof what’s happening, and eager to show someone else.

To some people, such skills come naturally.  To others of us, these skills must be taught.

We all need a hero to keep going. Without these heroes, we have no proof, sometimes, that “it” CAN be done and done right and done so well we’re left gaping in awe.

There is that one someone in each profession who is so good at what he or she does, so awesomely absolutely good at it, that we think of this person as a kind of professional idol. A celebrity in our field. We strive to – not imitate, for that never works in any profession – but to use as a good example of what we are ALL trying to do. . . that person who has figured out how to do “it” right, whatever “it” might be. Every profession has an icon.

Here is mine: