Teaching with Enthusiasm: Do You Do It?

PURPOSE 

 “Does your teacher love teaching?” How would you have answered this question when you were a student? How do you think your students would answer that question now? Are there some teachers on the faculty who always seem to love what they do? Are there some who only occasionally appear to like what they do? Are there those who act as though what they do is a daily chore?

All teachers are actors. All true professionals have to be actors because no one feels professional and enthusiastic all of the time. It should never be an option for any teacher to appear anything less than enthusiastic about teaching. The key word here is “appear.” None of us always feels enthusiastic, but we all have to appear that way. Fake it if you have to sometimes!

INSERVICE

Teaching involves performance and in many ways, teachers have to be actors. Imagine that you are an actor in a Broadway play, performing every evening. Should your performance become weaker and less enthusiastic as Friday approaches? Of course not, because each performance is just as important as the last or the next. How can you justify giving your Tuesday night audience a bad performance just because you had a bad day that day? They want you to act. 

Teachers have to be exceptionally good actors if we want to reach and teach our students. It is too easy sometimes to forget this and become a little (or a lot) too human with our students. That’s not to say we should pretend to be superhuman, but we should never appear human in a way that is anything short of caring, compassionate, committed and professional. 

If anyone were to ask your students if you love teaching and enjoy your time with them each day, what would they say? If you’re thinking that some of them might not answer with an enthusiastic “Yes!” then it’s time to polish your acting skills.

     Here are some easy ideas to implement as you focus more on teaching with enthusiasm: 

• Start each lesson telling students how excited you are about what they will be learning today
• Express your love of teaching to your students often
• Act as though everything you teach is the most exciting thing you have ever taught
• Celebrate the successes of your students as they learn new skills or accomplish new tasks 
• Use such key phrases as “Wait until you see what we will be doing today,” I can hardly wait to get started on today’s lesson,” This activity is going to be so interesting and fun.” or “Isn’t this amazing?”

When you are teaching students, your enthusiasm becomes their enthusiasm, and your lack of it becomes their lack of it. That’s why we all need to work at being as enthusiastic as possible in our classrooms every day. 

IMPLEMENTATION 

Now go into your classrooms and practice teaching with enthusiasm! We all have our distinct personalities but enthusiasm is something that should be relatively the same across the board. It’s one of those things that can immediately change the feel of a room and engage students in your lesson. This month’s professional development hour will require you to comment below. Add some strategies or idea to the list I gave you above, try some of these ideas and discuss how they worked for you, or just begin a discussion of your own. 

As always thank you for reading and for your dedication to our students. 

Brad