“Ms. Yeats, guess what?”
“Ms. Yeats, can I go to the bathroom?”
“Ms. Yeats, how’s it going?”
“Ms. Yeats!”

Standing up in front of the classroom each day I am swarmed by students.  It is a wonderful thing.  The students exude excitement and energy.  They are eager to be in the classroom and thrilled to be able to have their peers with them in a comfortable atmosphere.

This enthusiasm for learning is something I continually want to have in my classroom.  My students walk into an environment that is colorful, interesting, and full of their work.  It is a place they can call home and feel safe.  Within the classroom, the students are very close to each other.  One of the only rules in the classroom is for the students to respect each other as well as themselves, thus creating a sense of camaraderie amongst the students.  Through this sense of comfort, the students are willing to talk in class and take risks.  This creates an amazing classroom where people are successful.

Due to the students being excited to learn and feeling safe within the walls of the classroom, as a teacher, I am able to find challenging yet culturally relevant materials the students can enjoy.  This past semester, I challenged my freshman immensely by choosing poems that I read in college and with multiple levels of interpretations and intricacies.  Through this selection, the students learned about poets such as Nikki Giovanni and how she dealt with choices, how Theodore Roethke dealt with the effects of an abusive childhood in “My Papa’s Waltz”, and how Elie Wiesel handles the emotional anguish of the Holocaust.  Although these are very different and difficult poems, the students were able to reach a high level of learning while also learning more about themselves, other cultures, and their classmates.  The more contact and experience with diverse learning the students have, the better, more informed people they will become.

My students enter my classroom eager because of the variation of learning that occurs there.  They know I do not believe in a lecture style format so I am continually having the students try new ways of learning.  We formed small groups to reconstruct a cut up poem to learn about poetic structure, as well as used improvisation of Shakespeare to fully understand the meaning of Romeo and Juliet.  We have participated in large group debates to decide what Charles Dickens was implying about the French Revolution in Tale of Two Cities, as well as used small groups to have peer editing sessions for papers.  Activities such as these allow students to be actively learning in a way that works best for them, to think deeply and critically about literature, and to enjoy English.

The most important facet of successful teaching is for teachers to have strong relationships with the students.  If the students feel valued and respected, they will be excited and willing to learn.  My students currently pop into the classroom to say hi, are excited to have me teaching, and are frequently telling me personal stories.  They know I am interested in who they are; therefore, they feel cared about and are willing to continue to share stories about themselves.  This open attitude breeds a sense of learning and community.  They walk into my classroom chatting, laughing, gossiping, and ready to embrace the magic of knowledge.  It is my close relationships with students and passion for teaching that will make each day of class begin with a chorus of “Ms. Yeats’s.”

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