Teaching and the Classroom

You're sitting down with an old high school teacher. You have your pen and pad ready to take down notes, your list of questions to ask. The first thing you have written down: "Why did you decide to become a teacher?"

The list of responses is as varied as the people who answer it. To represent them all would be impossible outside a multi-book series, so we can but look to our own answers.

When we ask "Why do you teach?", many of the responses can be summarized by a single action: a shrug, a quirk of the brow, a radiant smile.

You've gotten done with another long day of classes; noisy students asking questions you've just answered and giggling as they whisper to each other and pass notes. You sit down with a sigh as the last student files out the door, laughing uproariously at some joke made by his friend. You lay your hands on the desk and let your head fall forward, hitting the fake-wood top of your cluttered desk with a satisfying thunk.

"One more day of that crap, and I swear I'm going to snap...."

So why are you teaching? What drives you, sustains you through the horrible noise and confusion that is your classroom? Why put up with the endless commotion of inattentive students day after day? Is it your desire to pass on knowledge to the future generations? Is it because you started in the education field, and darn it that's where you belong! Do you do it because the subject you teach interests you? Is it your passion for your particular field of knowledge that drives you, or the apathy that prevents you from pulling yourself from the rut that your teaching career has become? It certainly isn't because of the money.

Instead of waxing on for hours about the multitudes of the answers to "why", I'll instead focus on my own particular view, and what drives me to become a teacher. I'm going to throw myself into the lion's mouth by using the two most cliche and corny words one could speak: passion, and love.

Before you throw up your hands in despair and wander off to read something less sappy, let me explain myself. Music, since my youngest years, has been a great source of joy to me. Whether its singing in a choir or in the car, performing in a musical, or just sitting back with my eyes closed, listening to Beethoven or Mozart float from the speakers at home, I have always found the furthest extremes of my emotions carried in that music. What words so often fail to express, music manages to say with eloquence and passion.

I did not always know I would grow up to teach music. Like every little child I wanted to be an archaeologist and dig up dinosaur bones, or be an astronaut and explore the regions of space. I wanted to be an artist, famous for my sketches and sculptures, or an architect and design beautiful buildings. I wanted to be on the design team for the Lego company, and produce the newest and best in the world of snap-brick structures. As I grew older I toyed with the idea of writing, and even entering the ministry. Some of those dreams changed, some of those stayed the same. Some I still dream of, but know I will not necessarily attain, while others have passed away as mere fancy under the turn of years.

Now I know that I wish to teach music. Why? Might as well ask me why I wish to breathe. Music has become my life. It is one of the things I love most. More than that, I wish to show others that love of music, and hopefully let them find the same passion and joy that I take in it. Music can change lives, in every sense of the word, and I've come to wish nothing more than to change people's lives with that music. What better way to do that than to teach? I still remember clearly in high school the kids that were only there because they wanted an easy grade, or because their parents wanted them there. I've dreamed of taking those kids, and showing them how marvelous music can be, to make them want to be there, instead of having to. That is my drive. That is the why of my desire to teach.


But that desire brings up a very important question. How do you take a child who does not want to be in a class, and intrigue them enough to get them to take the first step on their own? How do you take a child, in any sort of classroom, and pull them into the multi-faceted and vastly intriguing world of knowledge? How do you take work and turn it into the spark of learning? What exactly is the difference between the two? Is it good teaching that marks the distinctions of those two words? What exactly comprises good teaching?

The answer to the last of that string of questions is basically the answer to the first as well. If you can teach well, as varied as the definition of good teaching is, you can pull your students in, and let them see things as you do. It will not always be so with every student. Some refuse to be drawn by anything, and there really is nothing you can do, but one should always try.

One important facet of good teaching is the ability to take learning and leave the work out of it. Learning should not always have to be a chore. It should be a fun, exciting experience that leaves a person wanting to know more. Now admittedly this is easier in some fields than in others, but the principle remains the same. Work is not always necessarily learning, and learning need not always be work. The best learning, that which stays with a person for years, comes from good teaching.

So, seeing as how the concept of good teaching has come up several times already, perhaps it would be a good idea to at least take a brief moment to go a bit further in depth with the concept. What exactly makes good teaching? There is no one answer for this question, but there are similar points that crop up in just about every answer given.

1. Learning should be a fun experience. The best environment for learning is one that is energetic yet focused, where the teacher has complete control, but the students do not feel stifled by that authority. Students need to feel relaxed and comfortable in their learning environment, and a electric, lively classroom is more encouraging to participation from students.

2. Be passionate about what you teach. A necessary component toward keeping the classroom lively and engaging is to actually care about what you teach. More than caring, a teacher should truly enjoy the knowledge that they are passing on to the children they are teaching. Even now, as in the past decade, I know from experience that a student can tell which teachers are there because they "have to" or they "don't really know what else they'd do" from those who are teaching because they truly enjoy it. This is a major part of keeping the attention of your students riveted on what you teach them. You cannot expect your students to be engaged in the classroom if you yourself lack the love and passion for the subject you are teaching.

3. Relationships with students is another key element in the classroom. The most successful teachers develop a relationship with all of their students. They do so by methods that are as varied as the teachers themselves, but that relationship is still there. Whether they become like a son or daughter to them, or if it is just meeting briefly to discuss an issue with the homework or a test, that relationship is still developed. This is perhaps one of the hardest aspects of good teaching, as the relationship varies drastically from student to student. Sometimes the student doesn't even need a teacher, they just need a friend, and that can be as important in a classroom as the relationship of teacher to student.

All of this hardly even scratches the surface of a massive and complex issue. If you are all very unlucky, I'll come back and expand my thoughts on the subject.

Til next time, faithfully yours,
Davin