Teachers should be ever learning

One of the things I've known for quite some time is that the best teachers are, themselves, always seeking knowledge. Once a teacher stops learning their ability to teach others decreases. The only research I have to back this up is my own experience.

Before I became a certified teacher I taught swimming lessons. It took me a while to get through college, because I had to pay for my own education by working. So, while I was trying to decide on a major I became very familiar with the Red Cross' Learn to Swim curriculum. I got my WSI when I was 18, with minimal skills in the more complex strokes. I couldn't do the butterfly very well. It was adequate enough to get my certification. My first year of teaching swimming lesson, I felt like I was the worst teacher in the world, and thus ended my early desire to ever pursuit it as a life long career.

During college and taking a sabbatical for a year and a half to serve a religious mission for my church, I went through the search for a field of study I would enjoy, which was coupled with my continuation of keeping my job as a swimming instructor. I worked in my field of study and on my craft of teaching swimming lessons. I taught every level in the learn to swim program. I saw what did and didn't work when teaching the skill of swimming. I also perfected my own ability to do the butterfly. When I finally graduated from college and started entry level/unpaid positions in my field, while still teaching swimming lessons on a regular basis, I realized my talent for teaching far surpassed what I had done through getting my Bachelor's degree.

I went back and got my teaching license in Special Education, and though I learned what I needed for my license through the formal education that enables me to teach, no amount of college gave me what I learned through self motivated exploration and experimentation.

I still practice that notion, as I look to improve my ability to teach math, reading, and writing to students with learning disabilities. Taking math courses, setting goals to read books I've never attempted reading before, exploring new languages, and writing for genres I'm not familiar with or good at all help me to see where my students are coming from. It allows me to feel the same discomfort that exists when a student tries something new and unfamiliar. That is where learning occurs...is in the uncomfortable and awkward moments of doing something that we are not good at or that we feel inadequate doing. It magnifies the importance of diligent practice, working through errors, and eventually becoming fluent and good at that thing.

Learning is never ending, and the teacher that embraces that and continues to find something new to learn will become the teacher that every student will want to have.