KENZIE HELMINK

For me, what it means to be a good teacher can be described in three ways. These three teaching objectives are: 1) being a good mentor and making an impact on their life as a person, 2) meeting students where they’re at and raising them up academically, and 3) giving students the opportunity to see things with a different perspective. There are many ways to achieve these goals, but in order to be a good and effective teacher they must be reached.

The first of the three objectives is to be a good mentor to students. In order to achieve this goal, I believe that as a teacher, you need to reach out to students to make them feel like they can come to you in difficult situations. Teachers need to be a comfort and a friendly face. Part of being a mentor is living your life in a way that students will look on and admire the things you do. To me, this means volunteering in your community, being kindhearted and caring, and being present in students’ lives. Whether this means attending their sporting events, other extracurricular activities, or just being ears to listen, I believe this impacts students greatly. I look back to my teachers, and those I remember are the ones that did these things and made me feel like I mattered.

The second way to be a good teacher is to meet students where they’re at, and then encourage and inspire them to move forward as a learner. As teachers our job is to enable higher levels of learning in our students and to facilitate new understandings of subject matter. By meeting a student where they’re at, is to set realistic, achievable goals. These goals will be a challenge and will push the child to truly learn, helping them to leave the class with more knowledge than what the came in with. An effective teacher needs to understand each student as an individual and teach in a multitude of ways to reach all kinds of learners. By seeing a class as a collection of individuals instead of one group, the teacher strives to reach each child and their learning needs, inspiring them in school and in life.

The third aspect of a good teacher is possessing  the ability to teach different points of view. By giving students opportunities to understand where other people are coming from will give them the ability to go far in life. If we, as art teachers, tell students that there is only one way of understanding things, what will they gain? By showing students that it is okay to see things in a different way, we are giving them the courage to step out and be firm in what they believe in.

There are many ways to achieve these three goals. Each teacher as an individual needs to find their own way to reach into students lives and become a part of their story. To truly be an effective teacher, I believe you must be a good mentor, meet students where they’re at and give them the opportunity to see others’ points of view.