My Teaching Advice

Throughout my career here at SUNY Cortland, there are about a million pieces of advice that I have received from various teachers, students, and advisers. There are a couple pieces of advice that stick out in my mind above all of the rest. The first advice is one sentence that I heard from my education psychology teacher. It is "they do not care how much you know until they know how much you care." This is referring to the students and that, to get through to your students and to have them take what you are teaching them to heart, you need to show them that you care that they learn what you are teaching them and that you care about your students in general. This is a quote that I will never forget as long I live and I believe that it is going to help me when I am teaching in the future.

Another piece of advice that I received that sticks out in my mind is advice that I got from a teacher when I was doing observation at a middle school. I asked him what he believe an effective teacher was and this was his response:

"The obvious answer is a teacher that can get there students through the course.  The less obvious answer is a teacher who can inspire a student to try or to care just a little more.  I had a teacher is high school that used to help me for hours after school in math.  I never told her how much I appreciated her ability to listen to my mind numbing questions over and over again and her willingness to remain in school for all that extra time.  I ended up with an 80ish average that year and a belief in myself that I could do math.  Although this later proved not to be true (I am a history teacher after all) I’ve always looked at this teacher as someone who knew what teachers were supposed to be. I’d like to also add that effective teachers have empathy.  Listen to the kids and try to take interest in their ideas and hobbies and you create a bond that is immensely helpful."

This advice from the teacher that I interviewed, especially the last couple sentences, has somewhat of the same idea as the first piece of advice that I mentioned. Relating to your students and having empathy can make them listen to you more and respect you because they know that you care about them. All of this advice will be extremely beneficial for as I begin teaching.