I have always had a respect for teachers. They gain new students every year, go through the pain of trying to help them to learn, and yet they still call their students “their kids”.
With all that I know of teachers, I really wanted to interview a teacher.
As it so happens, my roommate, Julia, is a music education major. When I was thinking of who I would interview for the month, I asked her what she thought about education and when she answered, I knew that I had to ask her to be my interviewee.
I first asked her why she chose to be a teacher. She said, “I think I chose to go into music education because since I was little, I really wanted to be a teacher. My mom was a music teacher and I thought that was pretty cool. And then when I started playing viola when I was nine, I loved it.”
Julia has been teaching students for a while. She loves her students and knows why she loves teaching.
“[The best part of teaching] is seeing people reach a goal that they have. When I started teaching private lessons in high school, I’d always get really excited.” She said how proud her students would be when they would struggle with something and then figure it out. “Just helping people reach what they’re trying to accomplish is really neat.”
She also knows the type of love she should give to her students. “That’s your little student. You want them to be successful,” she said. “Just that love and that common goal, I feel forms a really strong relationship.”
Julia had an AP chemistry teacher who she stated was one of her favorites that show that type of relationship. She said, “I took [AP chemistry] because my friends are in it and she knew that. She was so willing to help me anyway.”
Her teacher went one step further and asked her how she was doing with life and the stresses that she was going through. She understood that Julia’s priority wasn’t chemistry but “found ways to connect to [her] and make [her] successful in the class.”
For Julia, she wants to have the same influence with her students and not only be a teacher but help them with their own lives.
“I want my students to trust me, like 100%,” She said. “If they’re struggling with something, whether it be in the subject that I’m teaching, or if there’s something holding them back from doing as well as they can, they should feel like they’re able to tell me.”
Julia knows her main goal as a teacher is to teach music to her kids, but she also understands that her students may be going through other things as well.
“I know that there are other aspects of life that are important, that shouldn’t be ignored as a teacher,” she continued. “So I think developing a trust with your students, and just letting them know that you’re like on their side, and rooting for them. It’s always good.”
Julia learned a bunch from the teachers of her life whether it was an actual teacher or her parents or friends.
What she learned was that “everyone wants to be treated differently.” She said, “It’s something I didn’t realize before but I think that’s something I definitely learned in the mission. I would have to figure out how a person like to be treated.”
After being on her mission with the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints and being around people who didn’t always wanted to be treated the same Julia realized, “how you want to be treated isn’t always how other people want to be treated.”
As a teacher, she knows that while teaching is important, learning and caring for your students will help them learn and grow far more in life rather then if she was unconcerned with her students.
As for advice for others she realizes that learning new things helps put teaching in perspective.
“When I started teaching, the viola, I felt like I was pretty proficient at it,” Julia said. “When I went to explain things and explained it in terms that I could understand, the students I was teaching would get frustrated because they’re just starting and they didn’t understand what I was explaining to them.”
“And in my mind was like, This makes total sense. I’m being totally clear. I’m explaining how you should do something,” She continued. “What I wasn’t being conscious of was how I was when I first started, like, it’s really hard to remember how you were when you first started something, you can only see where you are in the moment.”
Julia said that she started learning the guitar and realized her mistake and decided she needed to simplify her teachings.
“I realized I really need to break things down for a new student. You can’t just explain it in terms that you have grown accustomed to. You need to find out how they view this new thing that you’re teaching them, and teach it in the way that they’re viewing it.”
In my life, the best teachers have been the ones that care for their students and always work to make themselves better so they can be better for their students.
Julia has these characteristics and I have a feeling that she is going to make a fantastic teacher.
