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The characteristics of a good teacher are so simple yet so profoundly full of new possibility for the students they reach. Each mind opened, each process mastered, each skill gained, allows for new potential.

The simplicity is in the reciprocal nature of learning, as we gain excitement for our area of expertise, we wish to share that excitement with our students! A good teacher is first an engaged learner/human being. Second to the plate is an extreme dose of patience. Recognize those you teach do not learn as you do. Each of us has special strengths, certain weaknesses, and varied capacities for understanding. Meet each learner where they learn best-for some, repeating directions 16 times might be necessary (research shows that for the average person to have full recall of a fact, he/she must hear that fact repeated at least 16 times!

Show kindness, notice improvements, give praise, encourage excellence, only make those red notations five or six times on a single paper or project, as those errors are corrected, notice a few more. Highly motivated students will sometimes give up if it appears useless to continue to improve. Walk in the shoes of your students, get to know what they are living, understand their concerns and problems, know their joys and successes. Invest, but invest gently. It is their success not your success that you seek.

Make the learning relevant to lives lived. If the information is useless for your students, why should they bother? Connect it to what they are doing and what they are seeking. "Give a man a fish and he will have food for the day, teach a man to fish and he will have food for a lifetime." Make that your goal, the independence of your students, the critical thought every student has possibility for, and allow for dialogue and argument, these show your student is learning and trusts you enough to question.

Take a class or read what you can about cognitive science, or the nature of human learning. You will be surprised by what you learn about our brain and how we process new information and knowledge.

Most of all, remain open to learning from your students. If you are open, you will learn as much as you teach in any setting.

Learn more about this author, Dusty Summer.
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