There are many educators that work hard at their jobs for the students they love and want to see them succeed. The educator of the year must go beyond these ideals of an average teacher. A teacher that exceeds hard work and strives for her students' excellence is Mrs. Knight. In the short time that I have known Mrs. Knight she always seems to pull another trick out of her sleeve. The ideals that I believe define her [teaching] are that she is hard working, she helps you understand the material not just know the facts, and she strives for students to be inspired and learn outside the classroom. These characteristics make her a better educator than just a “good,” teacher.
Inspiring students to learn is a large part of what I believe makes Mrs. Knight a teacher that every student can not help but like and enjoy. She inspires your learning. She pushes you to not just read the book and know the facts but how they intertwine and work as a unit. For example, reading definitions out of a textbook does not answer her question of how a RNA synthesizes a protein. She usually asks, “Can someone tell me that in English?” She wants to know what those words really mean to us first off, and second off if we actually understand what it is saying to us. She also gives us opportunity in the classroom to inspire our learning. On some of our labs she asks us to design our own variables to test, and after she asks us why we did that to the enzyme or concentration of substrate and what did this help us further learn or understand about the enzyme and enzymes overall. Inspiring students to learn also happens in our homework. These are not just homework assignments or readings out of the book, but they are readings of discoveries.
Mrs. Knight should be the teacher of the year because she makes learning enjoyable by being interesting. She is not a teacher that likes to stand up and ramble to the class. She asks questions that may relate to our daily lives. When we talked about fats in our diet, we discussed the types of fats we eat everyday and how that affects our arteries in our bodies. These relations help everyone in the class understand what is going on and why it is important to us. Also, when Mrs. Knight talks about things that we have to memorize, she usually has some funny way of saying it that helps you remember. She exaggerates syllables or spits unnecessarily, like “five prime phosphate.” She gets the whole front row just a little more awake than usual. “Five prime phosphate” refers to the five prime end a DNA strand. If the phosphate is at the end, then it is the five prime end. Not all teachers assist students in memorizing other than suggesting flash cards. Every student can respect a teacher that teaches you beyond the words on the page.
Some teachers may have these qualities, but the final ideal that makes Mrs. Knight an exceptional teacher is that she truly loves what she does. She loves watching her students succeed in anyway they know how. She gives challenging tests that make her students think beyond the material and make connections to other parts of their learning. She understands that tests and quizzes are not the most fun for any student so she gives candies on test days. This helps students relax during the quiz or test and focus on the questions being asked. It is less like a silent room of stressed minds and more of a one on one with your test. Her questions are in depth allowing you to feel as if you were just in class being asked a normal question instead of a robotic multiple choice type of test. Her room is full of laughter and smiles on a daily basis. The environment that Mrs. Knight creates in her classroom should be a benchmark to all successful operations. Inspiring thought and challenging every student with failing, but also knowing that failing is okay. It gives you an opportunity to learn.
The qualities of a strong teacher can be debated. Many have optional characteristics, such as kindness, that is an added bonus to a teacher that helps you learn the material at hand. A teacher that is devoted to her students makes the students feel a sense of pride in their work knowing she cares whether they succeed or fail. They encourages you to raise your hand and get it wrong! She takes time to make tests a more inviting environment, as impossible as that may sound. Her room is filled with genuine smiles and laughter. She puts thought into the questions that she asks and words them carefully, helping students understand what they are being asked and answering properly. The qualities and effort of Mrs. Knights teachings is felt throughout the classroom. Even the students in her class that struggle feel like they have learned very important information that they may decide to take into their careers as any type of scientists. If she does not deserve teacher of the year award, no one can.