Teachers teach students. Students learn from teachers. Teachers learn from students. It is a cycle that continues all throughout the school year and transcends through time.
Teaching and learning work hand and hand together. One method of teaching allows students to learn something. Other methods may not work or may require modifications. There is no one method of teaching that allows students to learn a particular topic or skill. Knowing this and using this to create the best possible lesson plan for a group of students requires time, patience, and determination.
A teacher handles several hours of classes and works overtime preparing for those hours of classroom activities. No matter how experienced a teacher is, there is no guarantee that they will always have the smartest learners or the best classroom lessons. Teachers have to take the time to get to know what kind of class they are handling so that they know how to go about teaching them. One class may be very advanced in lessons and so the teacher has to create activities that are challenging enough. Another class may be hindered by a topic that just can't be grasped, so the teacher thinks of other ways to teach for them to better understand the lesson.
Teachers should be experts in whatever subject they are handling. They study hard for it, and they should continue to do so especially when they have to impart their knowledge to their students. Students may appreciate the lessons of teachers more when they see how the teacher goes about teaching them. Because the students watch and listen to the teacher, they can see how the teacher acts and feels about the topic. When teachers seem bored with the topic and discuss it by rote, then students will, in turn, get bored. However, when they see teachers discuss the subject with genuine interest, then students will listen with their interests piqued.
The greatest gift teachers can give is their time. The time spent preparing a lesson, the time spent discussing the topic, and the time spent testing students' skills are precious gifts. Students will understand this once they know that their teachers care enough about their learning to keep discussing and handing out activities. They may not understand it then, and they may think all these activities are troublesome. But when they continue on in the next stage of their lives, they will look back to the time when they had a teacher who they could count on.
