What Makes A Great Teacher? Part Two

     Last week I shared Keith Hughes video, “The Recipe for Great Teacher” and shared my comments on the first two “ingredients”. (If you missed that post, you can check it out here.) One week later, I’m back and read to explore this further! Like Keith says, the final two ingredients are those “warm fuzzies”; that’s right, we’re going emotional on you. Before you read on, however, if you need a reminder, I’ve embedded Keith’s video again:

Here are my thoughts:

3 ) 25% Authenticity
– This one may seem pretty obvious but our students want us to be
  real. They want us to be ourselves and they want to know that
  everything we do is authentic. Like Keith says, “If you go in as a
  phony, students will know that and you’ll lose them.”
– Sit down, find your niche, find your true self, and run with it. Own
  your unique awesomeness and bring that with you in everything you
  do (in every class, with every student, in EVERYTHING you do). If
  you’re playing a game with your students they will pick up on that
  and there is no way they will buy into anything you’re doing.
– A great way to accomplish this outside of the classroom is to get
  involved with your school’s extra-curricular programs (sports, drama,
  photography, music, tech club, etc). Students want to know that we
  are more than just teachers, they want to see us in different environments,
  and they want to see how we act when not in “teacher-mode”.

4 ) 25% Human Relationships
– This is your understanding of human interactions and being able to
  read and interact with different types of people. Teachers need to be
  able to effectively convey a message to a group of people who all
  have different levels of prior knowledge, who have different levels
  of willingness to learn, who have different social/emotional levels,
  etc. We need to be able to work with all of the social/emotional/mental
  variables that make up our students and we need to do it relatively
  seamlessly (not saying that we always do)!
– Make sure you build relationships with your students, make sure that
  they know they are part of your school/classroom community, and
  make sure that they know you care!