What is a good teacher?

As an educator, I have my own ideas about what makes a teacher a good teacher.  Sadly, no amount of professional pedagogy can begin to measure up to what my sons believe constitutes a quality teacher. 

From the mouth of my intuitive 14-year-old (who just so happens to have an IQ of 129 +/-) :

"Coach Eason was a great teacher.  He acted like he was listening and he even knew my name."

"Mrs. McCarthy is one of my favorite teachers because she loves us."

"Mrs. Bramlett is just cool.  She laughed at my joke on the first day and remembered my name from then on."

And here's what my underachieving 12-year-old had to say about his Pre AP Science teacher this year:

"Mrs. Alwin is a really great teacher.  She never even sits at her desk.  She just walks around and asks us if we need help.  She doesn't even yell."

It's strange, and sad, how differently I view the profession.  I'm diligently creating lessons that allow students to build on prior knowledge, learn with and through others, and utilize Marzano's Principles of Learning, Bloom's Taxonomy, Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills, vertical alignment, scope and sequence, DRA data, The 12 stage writing rubric, Howard Gardner's Multiple Intelligence Learning Styles, research based instructional strategies, and higher order thinking prompts/maps. 

When judging my own level of teaching proficiency, never once do I refer to the one commonality that ran through all four of the above mentioned teachers and my sons.  Simply put, my boys felt valued.  It's that simple.  Ironically, they also aced every one of those classes...thus far.  : )

So, after tonight's discussion about favorite teachers, I think I'll just slow things down a little.  Maybe I'll try a little harder to pay better attention to strategies that aren't only "research based," but rather kid based.  I'm going to try to remember to really let my kids know that I love them.  Obviously, I love them.  Why else would I scrutinize every activity that I plan?  It's just do they know that I love them?  If they did, they might just love me back.  They may even reach higher levels of achievement.

But what do a couple of punk kids know, right?     

So I might sleep

A crowded echo,
one last note in the sea of song.
Decades spent
knowing every angle
and soft spot,
or peculiarity,
that begs to be heard.
Yet as undistinguishable
as the fogged mirror
from this morning's shower.

To sit
would be best.
But the fear of the known,
dwarfs
the vacuum that holds it all together.

This doesn't define me.
Nothing does.
Not this, not that, not any one word,
or nightmare, or moment, or phrase, or memory,
or essay, or lyrical masterpiece.

Just the lull of rumbling silence
screaming
to be seen.