Authenticity

Oh the power of authenticity.  A teacher really does needs to have authenticity while teaching their students, but it definitely shouldn't be forced effort on the teacher's part because students are pretty darn good at picking up on teachers who "fake" it. 

Just thinking about the teachers from high school reminds me of the range of teaching styles.  There are two teachers that really stick out.  They are two very different people who had quite the teaching styles, and both happened to be English teachers.  For this story we will call them Teacher A and Teacher B.

So teacher A had a very outgoing personality and was very friendly towards students.  I had always wanted to have her for a teacher because it seemed like her classes were really fun and stress free.  I finally had a class with her in my sophomore year of high school.  She was very personable and was always laughing at one thing or another.  Her classroom was set up very much so to her personality.  There were concert tee-shirts hanging on the wall, an Eiffel tower in the back corner of the room, lots of superman paraphernalia every which way you looked, and lots of pictures of her and her previous students  here and there. But once the class started and was settling into a routine, I noticed that just because she was fun and quirky all the time didn't mean she was necessarily a good teacher.  Often times, she would get sick of what we were suppose to be learning, so on many occasions we ended up watching Ninja Warriors for most of the class periods.  Not to say that I didn't  mind not being productive, but after so much of this nonsense I actually wanted to learn about grammar!  Over time it became obvious to me that Teacher A lacked a lot of self-confidence and tried to make up for that by putting more effort into being liked by the students.   This was very frustrating to me and many other students as well. Yes the class was an easy A, but it was a waste of time that could have been put to better use. Putting on an act is not a good quality in a teacher.  Teachers can have fun and be themselves, but there is a point when it can get in the way of actually teaching the content. 

Now for Teacher B, his main goal was to make sure kids came out of his class with tools needed to succeed not only in higher level high school classes, but college as well.  He had a very outgoing personality as well and quite a crude sense of humor.  While he liked to have fun and joke around, he wasn't afraid to give out bad grades to anyone.  He knew what he wanted his students to learn and he didn't put up with slacking.  Sometimes his sense of humor was not liked by every one, but when he figured out his humor was bothering someone he would apologize and stop.  I think this is something a teacher has to be aware of as well.  They have to know when to stop in certain situations.  Teacher B was always open to questions as well.  He wanted students to ask.  He truly was an authentic teacher without taking it too far. 

Being your own person is definitely something to strive for in the classroom, but one may or may not have to change slightly to benefit all in their classroom.