Caring Promotes Learning by Rachel

Caring Promotes Learning by Rachel - January 2015 Scholarship Essay

The teachers and professors I remember most are the ones who clearly care about their students. My high school band director was incredibly passionate about music and eager for us to learn. He got to know each member of the ensemble as an individual and showed he cared, making everyone want to learn more about music. I also had a college professor who demonstrated he cared by wanting to do everything to help his students succeed. By caring, he encouraged his students to exert the effort to maximize their potential and learn all they could. When teachers and professors show they care about their students, students care about what materials and concepts their teachers and professors are trying to convey.

My first example of a teacher who truly cares about his students is my band director from high school. Everyone in the ensemble was part of something bigger than themselves, and the reason we learned so much was because my band director cared a great deal about what he was teaching and our success. He took the time and got to know eighty students personally, knew their strengths and weaknesses, and planned ways for them to improve. He assigned each part with a specific student in mind, wanting everyone to achieve his or her fullest potential and grow as a member of the band. He devised written assignments with the purpose of expanding our musical knowledge and helping us more thoroughly understand the pieces of music we were performing, making sure to grade each one with care and always leaving constructive comments in response to our work. He fully dedicated himself to our band and the program as a whole and believed we could achieve greatness. His expectations and faith in the ensemble showed how much he cared about us, and because of that, we cared about the band, its members, our director, and our performance. We became more passionate about music and the meanings behind the pieces we played, we became a family who strove to great heights and made school history, and lastly, we learned a great deal about music as a whole because of how much our director cared about the band and about us.

Another caring educator I was lucky enough to call one of my professors is an energetic, passionate, and generous person who formed terrific bonds with anyone he taught. My Introduction to Teaching course last semester consisted of forty-two students, all with different teaching goals in mind and distinct personalities. This professor took the time to get to know all of us as individuals and repeatedly proved that he cared about our lives and our success. He went beyond the minimum amount of office hours he was required to provide, making himself available to any student in need. He read all of our assignments and took thorough notes on each one of them so that he would know us better as students and as people and could assist us more effectively. He cared about each student in the class and led them to care about his lessons and real world experiences in the field. He made his students more passionate about the subject and more passionate about their futures. His caring inspired me to learn and led me to the realization that understanding the basics of teaching is essential to becoming an effective, respectable educator. His caring showed me the kind of teacher I want to be and helped sculpt a clearer vision of my future.

Teachers and professors can most effectively share their knowledge and lessons with their students by caring about them as people. My high school band director could list the strengths and weaknesses of eighty different band members because he invested the time to learn about them. My college professor formed connections with his students and made them feel important and valuable because he cared. Certain teachers and professors, along with the knowledge and ideas they bestowed upon me, still linger in my mind today, not because they created terrific PowerPoint presentations or because they assigned a lot of homework, but because they cared about me as a person and always wanted me to succeed.