Lucas Leydon
Williams
English 1A
2 October 2013

What standards should we hold our teachers to?

Teachers must have a deep and technical understanding of the subject matter being taught. Teachers who have been educated in "just enough", or the minimum requirements to teach will not leave the student with a quality education. This is important, especially in today's society, when people are trying to get in and out of school as quickly as possible and to get any job possible in their field of study. It is the schools job to set standards and evaluations of the competence of the teachers abilities to thoroughly teach their subject at the level that is necessary. I have personally witnessed a situation where the teacher, in my eyes, was not qualified to be teaching the subject at hand. I was at Ohlone a couple semesters back taking a guitar class and all the teacher did was hand out a worksheet at the beginning of each class and left us to our self to figure out the exercise. Not only that, but it seemed like he could barely play the pieces of music he handed out to us! I feel I could have done a way better job at teaching the class, which shouldn't be the case when I am the student. Schools should display a competitive attitude when seeking new teachers, putting much effort into finding the right one for the job. This is in the best interest of the student, and also the future of education.

        It is important that teachers have the ability to adapt their teaching methods to the needs of the individual student. If teachers only have one way of teaching, it will prevent a number of students from receiving a quality education. Teachers must be constantly be finding ways to refine their teaching methods and find ways to reach out to a variety of learning styles. this could be accomplished by conducting regular meetings between teachers to discuss ways to incorporate different ways of teaching they have found to be successful. Teachers with more experience should be able to pass along useful tools they have come across to assist newer teachers to relate with students. Teachers should never be static in their methods and should posses the desire to always improve their teaching style.

       Teachers must have a passion for what they teach. If passion is not present in a teacher, it makes for a dull learning experience. Passion is what inspires the student to want to learn and also to excel in the class. I have had teachers who just sat there, robotically clicking through power-points in the most mono tone voice, making it very difficult to sit through an hour and a half lecture without pulling out my phone or homework from another class. I feel the performance of the student relies greatly on the abilities of the teacher, and passion plays a major role in this scenario. If passion is never sparked in the student, this will have a negative affect on not only the student, but the generations to come, being that the students of today become the teachers of the future.