I've had many best teachers in my life; which I am lucky to say. For this post, I could talk about my Chemistry teacher who always made our class feel special and honored because she didn't retire till after us in order to teach us all. Or I could talk about my English teacher and mentor who was eccentric and helped us understand material through weird projects and had students vote on his baby's name. But the one I would probably declare as the best would be the one that inspired me to be a social studies teacher myself, Ms. Neal.
She made every class interesting, whether it be from the different activities that we did, like an outside version of the triangle trade game, and infused her teaching with who she was. She was majorly into yoga and I can still remember her being up in front of the room and just standing on one leg with her other curled up and resting on a small table nonchalantly. We would take breaks during class and do yoga occasionally to reset. She showed her passion and excitement for the topic and made me realize how much I really love history and how much fun it could be to teach it. I still remember getting the "Future Social Studies Teacher" Award from her at the end of the year. I think one of her strengths was Positivity, she always showed her excitement for history in a way that pulled others in.
I know that I get part of my love of history teaching and teaching it through experiential learning like simulations or written word like short answers or essays from her. Her class was one of the first that I experienced how well social studies and activities and writing went together and actually taught me how to write a social studies based paper. I would say what is unorthodox about my teaching style is I'm not afraid to be real with kids. I constantly admit to my mistakes and weaknesses to them; in fact it's almost a running joke with a lot of my classes that I'm awful at basic math. I'm also not afraid to geek out in front of my kids about a topic and show them who I am. I also spend a lot of time getting to know them throughout the year and I am not afraid to stay after school just to be a place for students to come in and hang out in afterwards to get help or talk things through.
It is wonderful that you had so many teachers to choose from. You must have loved school!! I liked hearing about how Ms Neal taught outside of the box and taught SS in a way that was a bit unconventional. Do you pride yourself on being an unique and unorthodox SS teacher as well or are you taking bits of both worlds to make your own style?
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