I’m sure that most of us remember the character of Ben Stein from his roles as a teacher in both the television show The Wonder Years and the hit movie Ferris Bueller’s Day Off. His characters in these works are best known for being monotone and lifeless, boring all of his students yet amusing us as an audience. Why are these two characters played by Ben Stein so funny to us? Probably because we’ve all had a teacher exactly like him. A teacher whose class bored us to tears and could even make the most well behaved student squirm in his seat, look at the clock every two minutes, and just pray that he won’t fall asleep.

If you want to be a teacher that all of your students remember, believe me, this is not the image of you that you want your students to have.

As teachers, we probably all find something in our curriculum that doesn’t appeal to us in the least. For me, this piece of the curriculum happens to be the American West. I’d much rather talk about the goings on in the North East or South; however, the move west along the Oregon Trail in covered wagons is a part of American history that can’t be ignored. Why not? Because it helps lead into one of my favorite topics: the causes of the Civil War. So one motivation for being excited about the American West (and perhaps the least important one) is the end result, which is me being able to teach a beloved topic of mine.

No matter what you are teaching, be excited. It doesn’t matter from where you get the excitement, just have it. A student is much more apt to listen to and participate in a class where the teacher is happy to be there and is seemingly interested in her topic.

Find a way to make the topic more interesting for you and your students together. I find the best way to do this is to make it interactive. Host a talk show and interview different people who are going west. Ask them why they are going there, how they’re going, what they’ll do when they get there, etc. This involves planned research for the student, and no lecture from the teacher.

In years past, I’ve had my students create a stations lesson covering all of the key points from our American West unit. Each group had to come up with a way to “teach” about the geography of the west, why people went west, and hazards of moving west. Every station had to include an activity (looking at pictures, analyzing maps, playing a game) and 2 questions to answer about the station. After each station was created, the students visited each other’s stations to learn about topics other than theirs.

If you’re already excited about what you’re teaching, let it show. Don’t be embarrassed to be excited about your topic. That’s why you study it, right? Because you love it! My students know all about how great I think Thomas Jefferson is and about the thrill I get from the idea that the Colonists may have been wrong in the American Revolution. My enthusiasm makes them enthusiastic, too, in most cases. Its hard to ignore energy.

When students complete an assignment, celebrate them. Every completed homework assignment should be celebrated. I don’t mean throw your students a party every time they’ve gotten a quiz or a test signed by a parent, but be sure to throw them a good job. Most of my students feel good when the fnish assignments on time or bring all of their books to class because I make a big deal about how well organized they are, etc. Sometimes, when they’ve all completed an assignment on time, I’ll sing to them (this is a good thing, I swear). When they all recently handed in a 5-page research paper that took them a month of hard work to complete, I clapped for them and we all cheered. Its the little things.

Always remember, whatever you input, you get as output. If you input energy into everything you do, you will get the same or more from your students.