I, Joy Kirr, am a middle school teacher, author, and speaker. My 7th grade ELA (English Language Arts) classes are working to improve their lives through student-directed learning - without marks throughout the year. This is a log of my learning experiences... Want to have me speak with your staff or facilitate a workshop? Here is my PORTFOLIO.

Saturday, August 29, 2015

The perfect teacher is...

During the first week of school, I like to ask students to fill in the blank:

The perfect teacher is _________________.

Here are the answers I received this year. I put them into a Wordle.
The bigger they are, the more times students wrote them:


What will I do with this information?
   1. Share it with students.
   2. Ask students if they agree.
   3. Ask students if I can ask the same of THEM. (Eyes open wide at this point!)
   4. Post it as a reminder to all of us to practice these traits.

As one 7th grader wrote, "I don't think a teacher can be perfect, because that's hard." For sure! (Oh, how I love this age!) Therefore, I will keep these in mind, and keep trying, but know I can't be perfect. (I can't be both "calm" and "energetic" at the same time - a lot of balance is needed!) When this happens, I hope the students are understanding, just as they'd like me to be.

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