50 years of teaching, 50 insights

50 years of teaching, 50 insights

The endpoint of knowledge is wisdom.

Always remind the student of the big picture.

Creativity sees no walls.

Every discipline bleeds into every other discipline.

Edutainment is not always a bad thing.

Each student is a human being first.

Love what you are teaching.

Never stop learning.

Be prepared to learn from your students.

Just when you have a course nailed, it’s the time to start fresh.

Knowledge in the real world is fluid in the way it’s used, so it should be fluid in the way it’s taught.

Students need discipline and limits.

Much of learning is doing.

Tests are also learning situations.

Mathematics and visual art are languages, and need to be taught that way.

Every worthwhile idea is part of a web.

Connections are more important than the things they connect.

Assignments should allow students some freedom to make them their own.

Complex ideas require sophisticated language. Vocabulary and expression count.

If you expect to challenge students, you must challenge yourself,

No dollar amount can be put on the value of a good teacher.

A syllabus is built by you but chiseled into form by the students.

Each student has to know that you respect him/her.

Enthusiasm and passion are usually contagious.

Teach so that students will still be digesting the material years down the line.

Develop positive energy among your colleagues as well as your students.

Teach ideas as if they were for the world and not just the classroom.

In this visual world, the visual language is under-taught and under-appreciated.

Beauty is a part of all knowledge.

The blackboard is still an important tool for learning.

The goal of teaching is to help the student see and to want to continue to see.

Be as curious as you want your students to be.

Build bridges between disciplines among your colleagues.

Treat the curriculum as a living thing.

The reward of discipline is a set of instincts you can rely on.

Innovate with your heart in it.

Teach in a circle of desks. There is no hierarchy and everyone faces everyone else. The teacher relinquished some authority, too.

Make humor a part of your teaching strategy.

Be humble.

Your classroom is in the world, so let the world into your classroom.

How you teach a subject is the model for how the student will learn the subject.

Dispense discipline and praise fairly.

Patterns are more important than facts.

Listen to the student.

What a student wants is not necessarily what a student needs. You are teaching the future student as well as the present student.

Administration may know what’s best for everyone, but only you know what’s best for your students. Integrity means something.

When a teacher leaves the classroom, he/she doesn’t stop being a teacher.

Teaching demands a sustained and upbeat energy.

Your students are always your students.

If you do it right, teaching is a calling.