What Do I love most about teaching?

For me teaching is about the relationships that are forged between teacher and student.  I love watching people develop and grow.  I love being a part of that growth and seeing them move on to the next level.  It makes me feel like I am doing something with my life.  

I think that people who love to criticize teachers have no idea why exactly we do what we do.  I live for helping a student understand something that is really hard.  Or exposing them to historical topics that they have never heard nor and probably never will again (unless they go to college).  It is amazing how much students just don’t know and how much we can teach them.  I pretty much assume that they don’t know the information that I am going to share with them.  Some of them might know a little, but most have never heard of Andrew Jackson or the Articles of Confederation.  I get to show them that!  I am the person who really starts to show them how interesting history can be.  There is nothing more exciting than that.  

I like to think that I make a difference and help students become better people and citizens.  I like to think that I ignite a fire with my passion for history within them and show them that it really is very interesting!  History for me is always an adventure and a massive story that I have constantly been pulling layers back over the years.  I try to make them see that.

I have had students come up to me and tell me about how they were watching TV, saw the GEICO commercial that had something to do with the Boston Tea party and were so excited  that they actually understood what it was about.  I had another student who came back in after spring break last year so excited that she had go and seen in person canal boats and the lock system down at Great Falls.  She was so proud that she could tell her family some information that the guide did not!  These are the moments that I live for and work so hard for.  They are the moments that matter and what I love most about teaching.  As a history teacher I am helping students unlock aspects of the world that affect their everyday life.  What job is more awesome than that?