Inspiration

[5Parker]

I may have many miles to go before I teach, but one day I hope to be a high school English teacher. I have had a lot of bad experiences with horrible English teachers that have left me anxiously waiting to set out on my own, proving to the world that high school teacher is not synonomous with a**. But then again, I've had a lot of good experiences, too, and I am wondering if anyone would like to share their opinions on their teachers, teaching experiences, what they think an english teacher should be like, and more. Thanks.

[Jay]

In uni, there's one teacher (English lit) I like. He's smart, he knows a LOT about what he's teaching, his ideas are interesting (such as explaining reasons why this or that character did the thing he did), you can feel he loves literature. He doesn't behave as if he was way better than us students, he asks for our opinions and if your idea is intersting he tells you so and isnt afraid to tell you your idea is better than his... that's all i can remember just now , might be back later.
Btw 5Parker, welcome and enjoy your stays

[baddad]

Not sure if you want to limit this discussion to English teachers only.....but....


In order to teach, in order to have bestowed upon (you/he/she/them/etc) the true value and respect the word 'teacher' deserves, one must actually CARE about their students. I've had professors who were pompous, selfrighteous, brillliant in their fields, great orators, mind-numbing monotonetic insomnia cures, kind and gentle artists, uni-focused geniuses......and the list goes on.

Personally I prefer professors with presence, that certain quality of their combined upbeat personality and professional traits which renders a lecture intoxicating, riveting. An upbeat professor is a good professor....

[bbq13]

i was just a shy kid when i entered high school... my english teacher back in my sophomore year was the one who said to me "if you've got what it takes, be proud and stand out!!" she was telling me i had the makings of a great writer... i never believed her until a year later, i won the best script award for our school play... i even graduated with the honor of best in arts and literature... im taking up literature in college now... i guess you could say i was inspired by an annoying english teacher...

[litjunkie]

I had a professor when I was working on my BA in English who truly inspired me. She always believed in me and pushed me harder than any teacher I'd ever had. I learned more from her than any teacher that I've ever had. I can only hope to be an ounce of what she was to me to my own students.

[earth]

I really hated my grade 12 english teacher but he was the one that got me writing poetry. Here it is 15 years later and I'm still writing, and doing spoken word + hip hop.

I'd have to say the teachers than encourage you to diversivy while making you feel comfortable are ultimately the best teachers you can have.

[subterranean]

Well i live in a non-english country, means english is not a national language, but it's considered as an important language to learn. Well I'm not trying to be arrogant or anything, but when i was in high school, i often upset with my english teachers. Since they are teachers I expected them to master english, yet many of them couldn't even pronounce the words correctly. They hardly knew about english literatures and didnt even recognize many great english writers..Thus many kids (including my self) take courses outside school in private english institution (and we need to pay alot for this). Not only we could learn more, we could also read many great books in the library.
But I suppose things are much better these days...

[Black Flag]

There are as many different ways to teach as there are to learn, but one thing that stands out to me from college about what not to do is to have a personal agenda or idea to get out to the masses (i.e. students) and to push it forward no matter what work of literature the class may be studying at the moment. This is a problem in most American universitys I think. For instance, my English Lit. professor didn't believe that literature and/or poetry was relative to the reader. He believed that there was only one interpretation to a writer's/poet's work and of course the only real interpretation was his interpretation which just "so happened" to coinside with the pet agenda or idea he was trying to impress on his empty-minded students, who of course ate the s**t up!

[subterranean]

... He believed that there was only one interpretation to a writer's/poet's work and of course the only real interpretation was his interpretation which just "so happened" to coinside with the pet agenda or idea he was trying to impress on his empty-minded students, who of course ate the s**t up!

thats totally ridiculous thinking for a literature professor...what was he thinking..math?

[atreides]

hm, i hated my english literature teacher in highschool, he was the deputy principal, and i was always being sent to his office, and then he would yell at me in front of the other kids in lit, it was embarassing. I ended up liking lit though, because i was one of the best in the class and liked beating my friends in essays and stuff. I suppose which is why i still read classics today. I cant say my teacher inspired me in any way, though my biology teacher was great and inspired me to do environmental science at uni (which i did).

i think teachers are important, ive often thought about becoming an english teacher to interest some kids in literature, but when you think about it, most kids dont care, or at least dont realize the importance until they are much older.

[verybaddmom]

i agree that most kids are uninterested, as i was at that age. but i think that is THE job of a teacher, not so much to teach as to interest. my best english teacher wasnt one that knew the grammar inside out or could quote from any work out there. she was one that would pick the most interesting or most racy stories and work with those. she was the one that invited the most liberal discussion of the work, and always took the new ideas seriously. she was a first year english teacher, and while i was competent in previously taken english courses, i excelled in hers. she loved hearing new ideas, the more outrageous the better. if i could find enough "evidence" in the work, i could claim any interpretation that i wanted. i wrote papers for her that suggested that some authors were on drugs, that one was trying to get his girlfriend into bed, that shakespeare was trying to insinuate he had a large....um...codpiece. it was the fact that i could use my imagination and my own ideas to approach a work that was so exciting. it may not have been a traditional or approved approach, but i rearranged my schedule to take four more classes with her. the discussions were always worth getting up early in the morning for. i know i wasnt her only student that did that.
i guess what im saying is that she sparked an interest in literature in me that wasnt there before that. i have since decided to major in english and get my BEd, to teach it. like she did. because she did.

[severian]

I dont think there is a single quality that can make someone a "good" teacher. I had 3 excellent english teachers in high school but they were all very different from each other. I suppose the common characteristics would be that they insisted on getting the students best work, they found interesting material to cover in class and that they gave good/fair feedback on classwork.

[amuse]

that shakespeare was trying to insinuate he had a large....um...codpiece.

roflmao

but i rearranged my schedule to take four more classes with her.

very cool. you (and your future students) were so very lucky that you found her class...

[verybaddmom]

i thought so...she was awesome, i still see her often.
i think i told you about that shakespeare paper??? the one i wrote on "much ado about nothing" and the references to hercules?? it was hysterical. she loved it.

[Capnplank]

I think it'd be a tough thing. I mean, you're going to have students that are genuinely interested, and those taking the class because they HAVE to. They have no interest, nor is there necessarily a reason they should have interest. I feel that everyone should at least have some minimal background in literature, but for those that abhor it it could be very daunting just to get them to that minimal level, and then you may deter others with a spark of interest because their burgeoning little ideas were neglected.

Seems to me that a LOT of people are of the idea that if a novel is famous, generally considered "good", or just taught in school, that it has to be the most boring thing on earth. I'd probably be of the same opinion had I been started on something like "Daisy Miller". Kids are surrounded by a media full of fast, exciting, provocative things, so it's no surprise that a lot of older works might bore them away for good...