Passion

Passion is vital to being successful in any field, but in teaching it is especially important.  Passion can make or break a subject for a student.  I know that personally, I have had experiences on both ends of this spectrum.

In middle school, I hated choir.  I loved to sing, but I couldn't stand being in choir.  I would constantly watch the clock and I never seemed to be able to stand straight.  My body seemed to naturally align itself in a cool, slouchy pose.  I hated choir so much that, in eighth grade, I almost quit it.  Then, for some unexplainable reason, when I registered for my high school classes, I chose to take choir instead of band.  I really don't know why.  I loved band and couldn't stand choir.  None of my friends were joining choir.  I just took it.  It ended up being a life-changing decision.  My high school choir teacher was amazing.  She absolutely loved what she did.  She told us once that even on her worst days--when the kids were snotty, the tenors were sharp, or we were running out of time before Solo & Ensemble--she would, on a scale of one to ten, give her job an eleven.  She made me realize that choir is amazing, and because of her, I am a music education major.  Her passion rubbed off on me and almost everyone else who took choir.

On the other end of the spectrum was my experience with English.  I love English.  I've always been a bookworm, and when I was five years old, I taught myself how to type with my dad's Mid-State (Tech College) typing program and began to write reports on things because I was disappointed in the lack of homework given in kindergarten.  Needless to say, I was excited to come to high school and start taking harder English classes where the teachers would be excited about my love for literature rather than discourage me (like my sixth-grade teacher did when I started reading Jane Eyre) or think I was weird and a little nerdy (like some kids in my grade).  However, I ran into the same thing all over again.  One of my teachers picked on me for reading "difficult" books and suggested that I read the Twilight series.  Need I say more? 

While my bad English experiences didn't make me love reading and writing any less, it did prevent me from loving a class which I should have loved.  In my eyes, someone who is passionate about literature should encourage others to read, or at least be excited when they do.  And they should not encourage people to read Twilight.