What were the characteristics of your favorite teacher?

[Cid]

Since I'm a teacher and I want to be memorable, I'd like to know.

For the record, I teach seventh grade World History.

[Yamaneko]

My favorite teachers were the ones that wanted or at least seemed to want to be in the classroom everyday. There were too many of them that were their for the paycheck and it showed.

And speaking from hindsight as a more mature individual, don't be their friends. We had those teachers and that quality was exploited until the entire classroom experience had been stripped away in favor of accommodating the needs of the students instead of the requirements of the curriculum.

Just be there, enjoy it and share that with your students.

[Ramza Beoulve]

First thing, try not to make your class a monotone speech. Try to make it a little interactive.

But about characteristics... well, maybe to be careful, consider your students opinions, don't be so harsh but also don't be so sweet. Also be gentle, with a fair load of homework. In your classes, make your students participate with some questions, opinions about situations in history, and maybe sometimes recreate the situations. But yeah, don't try to be friends with them, they'll become lazy if you do.

Well, to tell you the truth, that were the characteristics of my favorite teacher. So yeah.

[Yamaneko]

How closely do you have to follow the curriculum, Sean? I know that at the middle school level there's still a tendency to skip over some historical details in favor of the larger picture which sometimes tends to highlight European accomplishments while portraying other societies only in relationship to European history.

The reason I ask is because currently I'm doing a project for one of my classes that's going to make it into a middle school or high school class. Our professor is pretty adamant about including alternative history arguments and keeping out the established stuff found in middle or high school textbooks. I don't know how I feel about it, but I would like to know what your thoughts are about teaching something verbatim. Do you plan on interjecting some of your own knowledge into lectures and perhaps augmenting anything you think is particularly incorrect?

[Ouch!]

I know my seventh grade history teacher was quite a hard-ass. He was hard to like, but his insistence on teaching us not only history, but also proper methods to study the material, has proved really useful over the years. I wouldn't call him my favorite teacher, but he's certainly a very memorable one.

I had this long rant written, but, when I got to the end, I realized I could sum it up very simply. Be approachable. Give your students some credit and don't be the teacher that just throws the material out there. Don't let the professionalism of the student-teacher relationship restrict you from showing your own personality. I know too many teachers who didn't let their own feelings into the classroom. Certainly, there are standards that must be met, but I rather liked a teacher who showed his quirky traits that made him less of an absolute authority figure and more a person that one could get along with. I was friends with all my favorite teachers, and I think I liked them so much because they allowed and encouraged that (at least to an extent).

Edit: Seems I took too long to post and Yams completely disagrees. I do think being friends is okay, but you still have to know when to put your foot down. Being friends with students doesn't mean you have to be a pushover in the classroom.

Also, don't throw in meaningless busy work. Homework assignments are alright, but give your students some credit. Homework for the sake of homework is useless. There's something to be said for repetition and memorization, but crossword puzzles, word searches, and other similar activities don't really help much. I know those can pop up in middle school, 'cause I was still getting them through my senior year. I know your hands will probably be tied as far as the core curriculum goes, but I have no idea if that extends to what assignments you have to give. I doubt it does.

[blackmage_nuke]

Know your subject, explain it well. Dont give out a large workload and most importantly dont give pointless work which wont be benificial.

[Rengori]

No banner ads on the front page.

Really though, you have world history, so that means you have a lot more room to be leniant than say math or science.

My favorite teachers were the ones that did really fun stuff, like for our US History class for every war we would "reenact" it by having a paper war with some rules (like for the Revolutionary War we all lined up, shot at the same time, and could only shoot once every 30 seconds).

Also, projects like every 2 or 3 chapters with long deadlines, but without stuff like "If you don't have 1 note card with your entire speech on it and if you don't follow it word by word you lose a grade on your project." I'm not gonna go out of my way and get note cards for a lousy 10 points. Also, remind your students when they have projects due before the last day or two, but don't overdue it or they'll tune out. Also make sure that the project itself allows for some freedom and creativity.

Long or hard homework on Fridays is a no. Half the class will have a horrible tendency to put it off 'till Sunday and forget later that day until 9 or 10.

Time in class to do homework is also really nice. Reviews are pretty good too, do it once in class and give an easy packet for homework due in a day or two. Don't overdo the review or you'll seem boring.

MOST IMPORTANTLY:
Act human, tell a funny story once in a while, just don't be all "WORK WORK WORK WORK WORK WORK."

EDIT: Another thing I want to add, take a break every now and then. Like after a big test watch a movie. And not something like Finding Nemo or some G rated , every other teacher that watches a movie will kill that halfway through the year. I know because by the end of my 8th grade year I had seen Finding Nemo like 8 times. TOO MANY smurfING TIMES. I had Try to get something a little more action packed and PG13, the kids will be really excited by something they know will have more action. For the kids who can't get their permission slips signed, say too bad.

[Del Murder]

My favorite teacher had fun projects for us. We got to keep our own fish, we built a lego town, and we did toothpick bridge construction with an economic twist. We also put on a play. But this was 5th grade and I don't know if you can do that stuff in middle school. Oh, and she also had a Super Nintendo in the classroom.

My favorite middle/high school teacher was my government/history teacher. She really loved teaching history and it showed. She got excited when the impeachment hearings were going on and as we watched it in class she would explain all the little things behind what the senators were saying. Her tests were very fair and very good at testing knowledge. There were 20 or so terms and you had to briefly identify what 15 of them were. Then there were three essay questions and you picked two. What made this system so great was the options it gave you to pick what you wanted to answer. It's too much pressure to expect teenagers to remember every little thing. She was also not too strict about classroom policy, but not too lenient. She commanded your attention and respect but if you were whispering to your friend she would just give you the eye, shake her head, and then keep on teaching.

[rubah]

In seventh grade, I think I valued either my science teacher or my english teacher most. Both were very funny individuals and both lead in an organization I was involved with (Christian Student Union)

Be funny and sponsor a club I guess!

You could also be memorable by talking about your son who is a year older than your students ALL OF THE TIME and being a dumshard, but those are not such good memories.

[Zante]

No homework’s, easy exams, good grades.

In history classes, something that was always bothering me was that we had to memorize all those years and dates. Not just the big ones, like when did WWII end, but every single one. I always hated that. One teacher we had only required us to know the century, so I liked that.

What I liked were thematic videos (we watched Save private Ryan or some such when we were learning about the battle of Normandy for example), going to a museum when it fit the era that we were learning about, visiting some excavations, stuff like that. Pretty much anything that was fun.

The best teachers where those who could teach us everything we needed to know for the exams in class, so we didn't have to do any studiing at home.

During oral exams, I liked the teachers who allowed us to talk about a given topic freely, and didn't just ask questions.

[Yamaneko]

The point here is not to make it easy, but to make it accessible and fun. Something both the students and the teacher want to do. No homework and tests (besides being against school policy) does nothing to benefit the students. Please have a couple years of hindsight before suggesting such things.

[SnoopyG]

when I was in 7th grade, my teacher would give us stories about himself when he was our age or older. Just gotta be not boring and treat 7th graders maturely.

[Wolf Kanno]

My favorite teachers in school were people first, the job second. Don't become their friends but don't hold back your personal opinion either. Students will be able to relate to you better but their general feeling will be respect rather than friendship.

One of my favorite teachers would do historical reenactments of events that happened in people's life that would not follow the book. He also did a class room contest where he split us up in groups and made us into teams. He put a huge map of the world which had tacks in every major city in the world that he felt was relevant. He then used color tacks to represent our teams and started us all in Rome. He would then take time torward the end of class to do a contest where he asked our teams historical questions (he used Trivia Pursuit of all things but being a 7th grader it was quite informative) and the goal was to cross over the whole world and make it back to Rome first. He called it "Rome"ing Around the World... It was cheesy but pretty fun. Competition tends to get student to try harder.

You should also turn classes into discussions sometimes (not all the time but maybe at the end of certain events) and ask the students to voice their opinion about the events.

[Zante]

The point here is not to make it easy, but to make it accessible and fun. Something both the students and the teacher want to do. No homework and tests (besides being against school policy) does nothing to benefit the students. Please have a couple years of hindsight before suggesting such things.

The thing is, most people won't ever need the majority of the stuff we learned in school. In most subjects, we just memorized the stuff until the exams and then forgot about it within a week, only to memorize some new stuff and then forget it again.

The only people who really bothered with biology and chemistry were the ones who wanted to be doctors or pharmacist, only future lawyers really cared for history, and so on. For the rest of us, having to learn all those things was just keeping us from concentrating on the subjects we would actually need later on.

Noone liked the teachers who acted like their subject was the most important of all, and everyone loved those who took it easy.

[Loony BoB]

I don't know how anal people in America are about politically correctness, but I found in NZ that the ones who didn't just "be a teacher" but actually added in some personality were the best ones. Telling the odd weird story, being able to break ice or have trade some banter with the students were by far more attractive when it came to which classes I wanted to go to and which I didn't. The teachers which simply taught were the most boring and, in the end, I was put off certain classes (and dropped them later on) almost entirely due to the way the teacher had no personality and just stuck to teaching, never being able to laugh. The teachers that were big on discipline obviously never fared well with the smartasses. Anyway, on to the points...

Witty retorts. Being able to insult the smartass students quickly when they're being disruptive is wonderful. If you can outdo them, then you win and can get back to the work at hand. It helps avoid a crappy situation where you have a student taking over the class, too. If you're not good with witty retorts, then being dismissive and talking to the student like a five year old seems to work. So long as you can grin and take the stuff they throw at you, they should do the same when you fire stuff back at them.

Willing to chase students around the room with a lengthy ruler while student is going "AAAARGH, MISS, LEAVE ME ALONE!" or something to that extent. Jokingly, of course. Basically able to have fun for a minute if it allows the students to all laugh and keeps YOU at the center of attention, so you can get back to teaching once it's over.

Says the odd controversial thing in a way that doesn't get them into trouble. A lot of students will enjoy that you can trust them with such open statements - they don't have to be that bad, just politically incorrect. It's like you're handing out cookies from the principal's cookie jar or something... do you think they'll tell? Hell no, they just got a cookie. Students enjoy being involved in light 'misbehaviour', I'm sure you know that.

Speaks with the classroom as much as they speak to the classroom, if not more. Always asks the class to see if people know something already instead of just getting straight into telling them how it works. Also speaks with the classroom about random things on occasion.

Buy something for the students. It shows you're really trying to get on their good side and are willing to put your money out for them, and money talks. More to the point, students (as with most non-students) are greedy and love people who give things to them for free. Our teacher would, on the odd occasion (once a month or so), bring in chocolate-coated marshmallow fish or possibly cookies and hand them out to people once they finished their work.

My maths teacher gave us logic puzzles or some kind of more amusing work if we finished our main coursework for the lesson. For a nerd like me, I loved that. It kept me occupied, gave me motivation to finish my work before the end of the lesson, and allowed the teacher to focus on students that actually needed help since they weren't sitting there yakking with the students who had already finished.

Almost anything unorthodox that doesn't require much effort is wonderful. Also, avoiding homework is great, too. Try your best to give the students the possibility of doing homework in class instead of requesting they do it at home at the end of the lesson. Telling them about the homework at the start of the lesson is probably better than telling them at the end of it.

I was never a huge fan of teachers who tried to cramp too much learning into a lesson with (seemingly) the intention of finishing with five lessons to spare. What's the point in finishing early if you haven't had the chance to learn it properly?

If you want the attention of the entire class, do it in a way aside from clapping or shouting. Think of something else you can do - it's more amusing for them that way. Shouting only makes the students feel like the teacher is angry and is fed up with them. Write it up on the black/whiteboard and draw a funny picture. Do something really stupid. Anything that might make them laugh or at least make them want to watch you. People are more likely to pay attention to a comedian than a teacher. Teach once you've got their attention. Be more entertaining than the class clown.