Good teachers are amazing!!!!

I continue to be reminded what a complex job teaching is.  This week I had the privilege of observing and interviewing our County Teacher of the Year Candidates.

At the end of each observation we asked the teacher several questions.  One of the questions was, “To what do you attribute your success as a teacher?”   Without exception each one gave the same response, “I build relationships with my students.”

This is such an important concept and so natural with any good teacher.  Getting to know your students and letting them know you care about them and their education is critical to academic success.  That is the critical piece in the complex trifecta of teaching, knowing your curriculum, managing a classroom full of students with many needs, AND getting to know each and every one of them.  It  is a continual dance.

Lee Iacocca once said, “In a completely rational society, the best of us would be teachers and the rest of us would have to settle for something else.