There is no such thing as a free lunch

This phrase is great for speaking about education. Learning/knowledge is not free. Everyone, even the rocket scientist and noble prize winners, had to work to get to were they are today. Everything that anybody has, got it through hard work. A teacher's job is to make sure that they do not just give away grades. Students need to work and earn every grade they get. Just because a student always gets an "A" does not mean that they always will in the future. All students need to be prepared as though every single one of them has the potential to go to college. There should be no singling out of students that teachers think may go to college. This makes the other students not try to their potential because they think that they are not good enough or smart enough. Teachers need to prepare every student for college, because in college you really do earn every "A" you get.

Expectations/Achievement

Expectations and achievements go hand in hand. If a teacher does not expect enough out of his/her students then they will not achieve to their potential in turn making them dislike school because it is boring. If a teacher expects too much out of his/her students then the student will still dislike school because now school is so hard they will never be able to keep up. A teacher has to find that happy medium for all of his/her students. This will ensure that the students do not get bored with school and that the assignments are not so hard that the student gets discouraged. This is the mark of a truly great teacher. One who can push his/her students to their potential. Any student can have so much potential if they just have someone to pull it out of them. This is what teaching is all about. Making sure that we shape our students into all that they can possibly/physically be.

Creativity

Creativity can go a long way in a classroom. If a teacher would mix up their lectures with hands on activity or videos of that topic or any other way to mix up a lecture. When a teacher stands up infront of their class and does nothing but talk, this is a good way to make sure that your students are not going to listen. They need something to make them say, "hey, I might actually use this one day". This is the question that all teachers get "when am I ever going to use this". If you can focus your lecture to showing them how they can actually use what you are teaching them in their day to day lives, then they will be more willing to learn and listen to what you are saying. For example if you are learning about percentages, why not use a store setting so that they can see how to get a certain percentage off of clothes, groceries, or even video games?

Hands on lectures

Doing things hands on in a classroom would be more educational for students. I say this because students get bored very easily and need to be motivated to learn. If they sit in a classroom all day long with a teacher who does nothing but lecture, it is going to be very easy for them to drift off into their own little world. To keep them focused on the topic why not do the same lecture, but with some thing hands on. For example, if you are talking about the civil war in history why not reenact it? If you are in math and want to know how tall a tree is when it casts a shadow 10 feet long why not go outside and figure out how tall a tree is that way? There is something that you could do every week in a classroom that would be hands on. This is also good leverage for a teacher who has students who like this type of learning because if they do not behave then they do not get to do the hands on lecture. I am not saying to do this everyday, but maybe every other day or twice a week would be good enough. I think that this would be a good way to keep students motivated to learn and maybe if they like this enough it will keep some students in school were they need to be instead of dropping out.

Blogs in schools

I was not even sure what a blog was until I took the EDM 310 class at the University of South Alabama. Now, I am not so sure that a blog would not be a bad idea to have in a classroom. The teacher would no longer had five students at his/her desk asking "I was absent and I need the work that we did in class". Now all the teacher has to say is "Go look on the class blog to get your assignments". There is no more looking up three different days of assignments to give to each student. This takes time away from the rest of the class and the class time. All the teacher has to do now is upload the assignments every day or once a week so that the students can see what they missed if they were absent.

Being Passionate

Every teacher that has passion for what they do is going to be a great teacher, they just will not be able to help it. Passion is what fuels teachers. It fuels them to go to work everyday; to make new, fun, and exciting lectures; and to teach even though they do not get paid enough to do what they are doing. I say this because teachers teach our future judges, doctors, teachers, presidents, and so on. The better education that a student gets, the better chance they have of being successful in life. Their success starts with us teachers who give them the knowledge they need to succeed.