Photo Credit: Pixabay
I've seen that in my years of teaching. It is so hard to work with students who don't care about my class and who also don't care about anything in life. One year, I had a student who had apathy in his veins, and when I asked him if he cared about anything, he narrowed it down to food and girls. It wasn't much for me to work with.
On the other hand, when a student is passionate about something (even dinosaurs like a student this last year), I think it's possible to use that passion for good in my English classes and Newspaper. But, I need a starting place, and being passionate comes in handy.
Does anyone have ideas of how to encourage your students to approach life in a passionate way? Or ideas on how to hardness their passion to use it for good in the classroom?
Emily Sell
Bingham High School
South Jordan, Utah
You can't teach passion but sometimes we can inspire it. I have three students I can point to this year who went from being disinterested to amazing. With each of them, it was because they did one thing well and I made a point of taking them out and saying how proud I was of them. From that point on, all I had to do was ask and they were ready to go. There are seven others that failed yearbook because I couldn't get them to finish a layout, a story or to write a caption. I admit that after three months, I told them they could do nothing if they chose but they could not disturb anyone else. Alas, that was all they wanted.
ReplyDeleteJudy Babb
West Mesquite HS
Mesquite, Texas
I think you teach by modeling. If you are passionate about what you do it shows. I always tell my students (and have the motto hanging in my classroom) "do what you love, love what you do." I truly embrace that mantra. I do not work because I have to. . . I work because I absolutely love my job. If someone took this job from me I would be lost. The paycheck is merely the cherry on the top of my hot fudge sundae. After being in the business world, nothing can lure me away from this happiness.
ReplyDeletePassion is a definate selling point for me when deciding the editors. They might not be the best writer, designer or photographer, but when they have passion they will work their butts off until it is the best. I love to see the passionate students, those are the ones that make the year amazing!
ReplyDelete