My MEL experiences!

• Helping Students succeed: The best example of a teacher I had that held me to high standards and had a lot of confidence in my ability was not actually in High School, but in the Navy. When you first report to your ship, you are what they call a "NUB" or non-usable-body, among other derogatory nicknames. Your first year or more on board, you are required to qualify in submarine warfare and watch stations you will be standing when the ship is underway and in port. You work your regular hours and do whatever people tell you to, and then when everyone goes home, you stay and study the ship to learn about hydraulics, high pressure air, the nuclear propulsion systems, and about 75 other systems vital for keeping the ship's watertight integrity. To say the least, it can be a little overwhelming. The entire time I was working on my qualifications, my chief was setting goals with me and talking me up to other divisions in our department, and basically making me feel like Sea Biscuit. I never worked so hard in my life, because I loved being good at what I was doing, and I was afraid he would eventually see that I was extremely overachieving for my norm. He redefined my work ethic by giving me confidence and making me compete against what were essentially made up landmarks.
• Hands on/ doing things: Dave Heroux, a professor at UMF is a great example of someone who uses multiple approaches to reach an entire audience. We would have lecture, do in class problems, out of class problems, and labs that all had real world meaning. He would create an explosion and explain to us why we saw different colors or where the different materials were going during the reaction. Volunteers were used to help get points across to the class, and there was always more to class than note-taking.
• Student/Teacher relationship: George Miller, another professor at UMF is a perfect example of someone who has a class that is completely reliant on people opening up and sharing ideas in a safe environment. In the Fall06, I took Contemporary Moral Problems with George. We took on extremely controversial issues such as abortion and capital punishment, hearing from both sides and eventually learning enough to back up whatever side we were on respectfully and very convincingly. To get 25 adults to take sides and have respectful and engaging debates, while still having a sense of complete safety, was extraordinary, and George set the standard for me in this category.
• High expectations: Lori Koban is the most motivational math teacher on the planet! Last semester, I took calculus II with her, which requires a gateway exam to pass the course. You are allowed to take the gateway once a week until you achieve an 8 out of 10, with no partial credit awarded. I am not exagerating when I say that I got 1 out of 10 or zero correct the first five weeks! I was sort of hoping that maybe she would lower the bar or offer us some way out of the gateway, but it never came, she just kept encouraging us and going over each exam with the class individually to see where your problems were coming from. In the end, I had so much confidence in myself. Even when I was getting 7 out of 10 and not passing, I knew I could do it. I ended up achieving the minimum of 8 out of 10, and got a C- in the course, but I never worked so hard for a single class. I walked away from that class with a huge increase in knowledge base and a lot more confidence in my math skills.
• Connections: Connections with real life situations or previous knowledge is something that I think a lot of my teachers in the past struggled with. I'm sure that they have tried to relate, but nothing really sticks in my mind, except for the teachers I have already mentioned. Even for myself, I think this will be the most challenging part of teaching, because everyone's experiences are so different. There is generally no universal experience that is going to keep the attention of the students unless something epic such as 9/11, or an assassination happens.