Often heard in the parent and teacher meetings and at other forums. 'This child is not interested'. 'Your child should show some curiosity or interest in the subject.' 'The child is not attentive in the class and does not keep up with his or her work'.
Most often the burden to learn is put on the child or the student by the teacher and the parents. On the opposite end of the spectrum are teachers who are so enthusiastic that they do not have disinterested students in their class! What thus is the the number one need to have a great classroom experience? If I asked you to name your favourite teachers from kindergarten through graduate school, it would be easy to answer, wouldn’t it?
Good teaching is as much about passion as it is about reason .... It's about caring for your craft, having a passion for it, and conveying that passion to everyone, most importantly to your students.
- Professor Richard Leblanc
Award-winning teacher, York University, Ontario
If the teacher's having fun, there's a good chance the students are also. Students of all ages appreciate a teacher who's having a good time. Hard work and dedication are not exclusive of having fun. In fact, one of the valuable things I learned during my student teaching was that the harder I worked outside of class getting ready for it, the more fun I had inside the class. When students say that a teacher is "fun" or teaches a "fun class," they don't mean it's all fun and games in which no teaching or learning is going on. They simply mean that the teacher enjoys what he or she is doing, and that it becomes an important part of the atmosphere of the classroom. In the teaching profession hard work and fun go together.
- Hal Urban
Having fun while working hard
There are other words that are similar to enthusiasm and passion. They also describe our favourite teachers. Here are a few of them:
zest
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excitement
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energy
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fervor
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eagerness
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enjoyment
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delight
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zeal
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liveliness
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vitality
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vigor
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devotion
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During their career, teachers face a lot of challenges but the most difficult of all is to motivate unmotivated students. There are different ways to motivate uninterested students but these methods prove to be effective only if you show patience and a lot of perseverance.