A is for excellent teachers

My mind always thinks of teachers this time of year because I know they are getting ready long before their students arrive on that first day of school. Every one of us has a teacher on the short list of people who have inspired us or turned our life around somewhere along the way.

With that in mind, today's column is dedicated to those current heroes of our culture, the hard-working men and women in classrooms and home schools across East Texas.

If you are a teacher, are you always on the lookout for ways to make your subject as interesting to students as it is to you? Do you wonder if your class is known as boring? Or too easy? Or too hard? Do your students struggle to learn the material?

Here's a list of ideas just for you, just in case there's an idea here you haven't tried already; just in case a list could give you one good idea. Think of it as a small thank-you for all your hard work.

Put other people at the head of the class:

- Invite guest teachers or substitute teachers once or twice a semester to keep the students alert with different teaching styles.

- Assign important points to a student and have that person explain it to the class.

- Have each student glue the same items to a paper plate. Explain the concept that goes with the items. Then, have each student explain the concept with their plate to the whole class, so that they hear the concept repetitively twenty times.

- Have the students stand up, pair up, and role play information repetitively until all have performed the task a number of times.

- Have the students wait in line as each student does the same role play from memory so they'll pay attention, realizing that their turn is next.

Simple things you can do for emphasis:

- Put things on the overhead backwards to get their attention.

- Point out difficult info and say, "Everyone always misses this on the test."

- Act out words and definitions, like charades, until the students figure out the concept.

- Settle in and tell a "yarn" that seems unrelated to your subject until the punch line which stresses some point that they will need for an upcoming test.

- Have the students put away their pens and paper, stand up and repeat everything you say. Then, have them sit down and speak the same concept quietly to themselves as they write it.

- Have all students wait in line to answer a question so they'll all hear the answer 20 or so times.

Things you can do to stay ahead of your students:

- Challenge them by adding trivia or subject matter that is interesting, but a little beyond their grade level, just for fun.

- Let your students identify and ask a question by prepping them to want to know before you tell them the answer. Do not answer the question or spoon feed information

By the time a student has made it to the bottom of this list, chances are good that he will have discovered a bunch of interesting people on campus, even after only two weeks. Who knows, maybe he will also know the words to the fight song because he had to sing it in the center of the campus. Best of all, it will probably lead to some lasting friendships.

Which leads to some other really good advice for freshmen: Don't forget to study!

Cathy Primer Krafve, aka Checklist Charlie, lives with her family in East Texas, except when some of her children go off to college every semester and live on their own. She can be reached at CaeKrafve2@aol.com and welcomes all comments or lists.