What is a good teacher?

Sheila posted this quote by Dwight Eisenhower:

“A good teacher is one who can understand those who are not very good at explaining, and explain to those who are not very good at understanding.”

When I decided to become a teacher, I asked myself the same questions Sheila is posing. Can I explain well enough, will the students understand me? And am I able to understand them?

The best way to answer the question is to try it out. In Germany, many pupils take extra lessons in the afternoon. (School usually ends around 1 pm.) Older students or teachers-to-be (like me) help them with their homework, work with them on things they didn’t understand at school, prepare them for tests and exams. I’ve been teaching younger pupils since 8th grade, and I hope most of my students would say I was able to help them with Mathematics, Physics, English or Latin. (Yup, that’s right, I even taught Latin to one student. But that was a looong time ago. Sadly, I don’t remember much of my Latin now…)

But there’s a difference between teaching a single student (or two) and teaching a whole group of 20 to 30 students at once, and I won’t be able to find out whether I’m good at teaching before I actually get my first job as a teacher.

Papa Al

Home Life – LOL!

“Megan: “Daddy, why does the ‘fridgerator hum?”

Daddy: “It hasn’t learned the words yet.”

Megan: “What happens when it learns the words?”

Daddy: “Then it’ll turn into a stereo!”

Mommy: “Al! Stop it!”

Not really having a father growing up, I needed a role model when I had my own kids. I decided on Calvin’s Dad. Well, not so much decided as dictated by the nature of the children my side of the family seems to produce…”

is my favorite cartoon.

New T-shirts

Craig, here’s a little something for you…

When we we met Craig in Koblenz a couple of days ago, he brought us T-shirts from his company, BookLab. He said they were the last two!

Here’s a picture of André and me wearing them.

I also found a photo of Craig wearing the same T-shirt! And here’s a closer look at the BookLab logo. It’s beautiful!