Passion: I particularly like this one (hence the picture). If I am going to teach my students history, I have to be passionate about what I teach. It goes without saying that many students find history boring. What is worse is when you couple this with a teacher who makes this worse by reading out of the text book and not bothering to pursue the subject for himself. I am hoping to continue to read, to investigate, and pursue history (and English) in order to bring the best to my students. There are so many incredible stories in history that just get pushed to the side so students can memorize more dates. I want to be the teacher that is infectious in my excitement for history.
Communicate: The blog post mentioned communication in regards to a teacher and the student/parent. I also agree that communication is vital for a teacher. I keep hearing horror stories about angry parents coming after the hapless teacher. I know that as a teacher, the best thing I can do is work on my communications skills in order to make my relationship with my students and parents smooth as possible.
Get a Mentor: I hope to find someone I can really look up to when I begin my first year of teaching. To me, it seems this would save a LOT of trouble and incidents in the first few years of teaching.
Be Willing to Grow: This is another big one for me. In any incident of life, you have to keep learning. I think the first few years of teaching are going to be chalk full of it. I expect most of my learning experiences will be from mistakes but as I become more experience then hopefully I will be learning less from mistakes and more from exploring/testing out new ideas for my students.
Collaborate: Collaboration is also vital. I imagine that if you huddle in your own classroom it will continually be stale. However, if you reach outside the classroom and try to engage your peers and friends in coming up with new ideas, the resources will be boundless. I will talk to my wife in order to get her opinion on certain ideas and she usually is my smarter half so my ideas are that much better. I think collaboration should also occur with the students. In order to make them feel a part of the learning experience, I think it would good to give them options.
Make Time for R.R.: I think this point will be especially critical for the first few years. When I get focused on a project (such as trying to teach a full year of school for teenagers) I tend to forget about everything around me. However, that usually means I burn out quickly. I would not want to do that to my family or my students. If I burn out, I know I will make more mistakes, the teaching quality will be low, and the kids will probably not respect me much as a teacher.
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