Dainty1
Ryan Dainty
Bethel College
Transition to Teaching
Admissions Essay
Redefining Greatness: Reflections on Being a Teacher Today
A great teacher is first and foremost a great student. In other words, a great teacher is a lifelong learner. Only such a teacher is able to inspire his or her students to attain a similar love of learning. Such exemplary leadership is necessary for teaching the youth of this and future generations.
While it is essential for a great teacher to be an expert in his or her subject matter, the reality is that young people no longer go to school to get information. Therefore, the teacher is no longer the primary source of knowledge for students today. But a teacher can and must be the primary source and example of learning for his or her students. A great teacher must accept this new role with a dose of humility. Currently in my third year of teaching English and Language
Arts at Marian High School in Mishawaka, Indiana, I have quickly learned that my students are not nearly as impressed with my expertise in subject matter as I was with the expertise of my teachers. Today’s student is not impressed with a stirring or particularly insightful lecture, but they are, rather, often bored. This is not to say that a teacher’s job is to simply entertain the students, for a teacher is still a teacher. Rather, this is to say that a teacher’s role is to help the students navigate the myriad of information that inundates their lives.
Facebook is seen as more important to students than Faulkner; YouTube commands more of their attention than does “Young Goodman Brown;” and
Jersey Shore may never be missed at the expense of James Joyce. Starting as a first-time teacher three years ago, I resisted that this was the case for many students, and I dug my heels in and insisted that my students learn the way
I did: sit still and read the text carefully. What I have quickly realized is that students are more likely to read a blog, or Wikipedia, or three hundred comments tagged to a viral video, than they are to sit for two hours and struggle through fifty pages of The Grapes of Wrath . While the necessity of being able to read and grasp difficult texts in all their complexity is still very much a necessity, the way in which teachers facilitate the development of critical reading and critical thinking skills is changing. A great teacher empowers students to read the various “texts” of their lives with a critical eye. The goal should be a mutually-critical correlation between a student’s experience and the experience of the subject matter being taught. How does a student’s experience challenge what a text says? How does the subject matter challenge the experience of a student? A great teacher’s classroom is a place where such critical skills are encouraged and developed.
Such a classroom environment acknowledges student autonomy and validates student experience. It does not mean that students will dictate subject matter or even methodology, but it does put the emphasis in the classroom on conversation . A great teacher faces this new educational landscape with openness to such conversation. By teaching students the rules and the goals of conversation, a great teacher encourages his or her students to bring their experiences, their findings, their information to bear in conversation with the subject matter, and a great teacher helps the students converse with those experiences, findings, and information and equips students with the critical skills to discern what is valid information and what information may be

Dainty2 less valid. Such an approach to teaching privileges the development of skills over, but never exclusively at the expense of, the acquisition of knowledge.
The sum total of this approach is, hopefully, recognition on the part of the students that their teacher cares about them as individuals. The teacher who is capable of the discipline, patience, and compassion such an approach requires embodies the virtues found in all great teachers: prudence, justice, fortitude, and temperance. Formed in virtue, a great teacher does not simply educate students, but he helps to form them in virtue; a great teacher not only shares knowledge with her students, but she also imparts wisdom to them. A great teacher attends to the whole person and exemplifies to students the potential that exists for them as responsible, critical, and caring citizens.
I was recently honored by students, parents, and colleagues with the Light of Learning
Award, given by the Diocese of Fort Wayne-South Bend to an outstanding teacher who has been employed by the school for more than two years and meets or exceeds the following criteria:
Acts in a Christ-like manner, motivates students, is involved in school activities, is knowledgeable of subject matter, and relates well with students. I was both surprised by this recognition and greatly humbled because in reflecting upon how far I have come in my first three years of teaching, I recognize how much more room for growth I have. I have realized this year that I am finally comfortable enough with myself and with the curriculum to actually look beyond my planner and see my students in all their simplicity and complexity. I am learning to be much more in-tune with what is going on with them as people, and I am able to enter into that space and really talk to them as young people who desire to grow to be responsible and good adults. It is from this place that I have realized the reflections I offer here.
I am a lifelong learner and an excellent student. I am committed to learning more about pedagogy and language arts methodologies. I am highly skilled in my content area. I am committed to my students. I am steadfast in my approach to education through conversation, while flexible enough to respond to students according to their needs. I will become a great teacher because I love to teach, because it is who I am, and because such teachers are needed today.