Isn’t it great how stock photos accurately portray what the teaching profession is all about? Look how happy that teacher looks. And it’s all because teaching is simple if you just follow these easy steps (a little teacher humor, if you’ll forgive me).
- Dress your students in bright colors from the same color palette. A colorful, jewel-toned classroom is the perfect learning environment. I’m sure that’s in Suggestopedia somewhere!
- Make sure the books on your desk are also colored with the same palette so everything harmonizes. For best results, don’t use books that have any titles or pictures on the cover. Those are distracting. Blank covers and blank pages not only color-coordinate better, but they also represent the blank tablet of your students’ minds, just waiting to be filled with knowledge.
- Make sure your students stay in the background, even keep a little blurry. Teaching is all about you. In the same vein, make sure your wardrobe stands out from your students’ clothes by wearing neutral colors.
- Be sure to never write anything on the blackboard. Keep it clean so that it makes a nice clear background for your photo ops. You also don’t want to get any nasty chalk dust on your clothes. That would interfere with your teacher look. Remember the better clothes your look, the more your students will learn!
- Don’t forget to strike a pose. Nothing says competent teacher like confidently crossed arms.
- Require that all your students smile too, especially when they are raising their hands. This proves that they all know the answer and that means that you are a good teacher.
- Remember every day to assign a different student the job of whimsically raising two hands. That means students are having fun in your class.
- Most importantly, don’t worry about turning your back to your students from time to time and smiling to yourself as you stare in the distance. Your students will respect you more. They’ll wait patiently for you. They certainly won’t call your name or repeat the word, “teacher” until you call on them. Or start calling out answers. You dressed them in jewel tones and they admire that. And they will never do anything bad behind your back like sneak a peek at their cellphone or hit each other or copy answers.
What do you think?
Any other lessons learned from this completely typical classroom scene? This is in no way meant to be teacher humor. I am very serious about this!
Note: This is a repost as the original blog post was lost when I last moved my site.