Celebrating Teachers – A Celebration Challenge

Let’s celebrate teachers, learners, teaching, and learning!

For this semester’s paragraph assignment, I asked my participants to choose one of these topics:

1. Describe a memorable teacher.
2. Describe a memorable student.
3. Describe three characteristics you would like to have as a teacher.
4. As a teacher, what is your dream?

I was so excited and proud of what they wrote that I wanted to share some of their quotes with you. (scroll down)

And in celebration of their self-exploration, I would like to reflect these topics back to you. Describe any of the above topics via your blog, email (josette.leblanc@gmail.com), or Facebook, and I’ll share them on my blog! It’s time for a celebration and I look forward to celebrating with you :)

This will be a three part series: celebrating teachers; celebrating learners; and celebrating learning and teaching. For today’s post, my participants celebrate their teachers:

“It is natural to forget many people as years go by, but the fact that I recall him from time to time proves that he still inspires me with how teachers ought to be.”

“When I was a middle school student, I was too poor at English. Fortunately, I met a kind and considerate English teacher and thanks to her I could get self-confidence and find my potential abilities. I want to be a teacher like her. ”

Primary Color Teachers :)

“He intended to teach us how to discover knowledge, to study for ourselves through the unique way of teaching.”

“He tried to draw out what was in our minds. Sometimes we kept having hot discussions even after the bell rang. In his class, students were not just audiences; we were the speakers.”

“In retrospect, he (high school teacher) was so warm-hearted, especially to me. When I failed in the university entrance exam and sobbed in his presence, he sympathized keenly and encouraged me to try again.”

“Unlike others, he (the school principal) sees change as a challenge, embraces it wholeheartedly, and adapts easily to change. He constantly seeks possibilities and looks for various ways to actualize them. Such attitude has inspired me not to be afraid of facing some defiant students or introducing some new teaching methods in class.”

Teachers celebrate!

– Katharine Trauger, who blogs at Home’s Cool, celebrates…

“Mrs. Higgins.

As Irish as could be, elderly and wiry, she taught my 9th-grade algebra class. I, not being one of the world’s brightest math students, found constant inspiration in the mystery that she could actually like math.

She loved us when we were at that age when few people would. She called each of us “Honey” or “Darling” all the time, and it was not demeaning. Yes, she loved us, and we, her. We reveled in her terms of endearment. We were her happy captives for an hour of learning squiggles we could hardly grasp. In her dedication, she would actually draw examples of the Pythagorean theorum on the blackboard, so we could visualize it, complete with every square necessary to accurately depict it.

Her complete excitement at our successes was contagious. I often spent over an hour trying to solve an extra credit question–and often to no avail–because of her habit of saying, “Well! You DID it, Honey!” And when we failed, it was, “Aw, you don’t understand it, do you, Honey. You come by after school and I will help you get it.”

I am sure she is no longer living, since I am over sixty years, now, but the fact that I can remember her (and the Pythagorean theorum) like it was yesterday, says so much.”

– Brad Patterson, passionate ELT thinker who blogs at A Journée in Language, celebrates a memorable university teacher:

“Ken was my favorite sociology professor.  I learned just as much about teaching as I did sociology from him.  He had a way of creating a class discussion that blew other teachers out of the water.  He understood pause and silence very well.  Ken, though never ‘assessing’ the quality of our discussion, would nonetheless drive us further if it seemed we hadn’t uncovered enough.  But, the most memorable character trait was his humility.  Many of our discussions were hefty and quite values-based, and yet Ken remained the facilitator of the discussion and didn’t feel the need to drop his two cents, or to appear the one with the most well thought-out opinion.  Ken made us search deeper by not giving us the answers and that’s probably left a greater mark on me than most of the other courses I ever took at the university.”

– In his blog, From the Desk of Mr. Foteah, Mr. Matthew Ray celebrates his students in Reasons to Celebrate.