I’ve been getting a lot of praise from my boss lately. Apparently, I’m doing something right, so I decided to sit down during my vacation to figure out what I’ve been doing well, and where I need to make improvements. Secondly, I wanted to figure out what I was doing differently than the other teachers.

I went through everything , and I could only come to one conclusion. I have great students.

As I was going through each group of students that I have, I eventually  made it to the kids, and I figured something out. The best teachers are parents. The students who have active parents are so easy to teach that it doesn’t even feel like teaching. I introduce something to the kids, send them home, and their parents drill it in. On the other hand, the kids whose parents are not involved are the exact opposite. It seems like they never get a concept until they see their friends using it, and since they don’t want to feel left out, they really focus on figuring it out.

I know that this doesn’t apply to all my students, since kids classes are a minority of what I teach, but it’s a good start.