A Good Teacher is....

Yesterday my students and I started a brand new wiki/blog space. It is a page our district created for us that has both a wiki and blog component. We discussed the purpose for each component and let the kids explore. Each student blogged about the idea "A good teacher is...." in response to the first couple chapters in Bridge to Terabithia after meeting Mrs. Myers' (the teacher in the story).

Here are a couple of their responses:
A good teacher is....
-filled with peace.
-shiny.
-a listener.
-reminds their students of the classroom promises and expectations.
-helps people to be a nice teacher and person
-Happy because you don't your teacher to be grumpy and fun because you don't want to live a boring life on the weekdays.
-Another way to describe a good teacher is playful. She plays and laughs with kids.
-Respect is a teachers greatest value so they help scared kids that need help.
-I like Teachers that I can understand what the class is doing and that can understand me.

I love reading what they have to say and finding what is important to them. These were just a FEW of the many insightful thoughts they shared. I LOVED the "filled with peace" one. He told me that I was filled with peace. I hope so (however, there are times when I know this is not true...haha!). This activity left me inspired to meet their expectations as they all seem very reasonable to me!

Disclaimer: Of course, now that they know how to blog/wiki, the student will use these resources in a variety ways that make sense to them (podcasts, book reviews, writing workshop, videos, etc.). We started with a general topic so that we could introduce blogging.