Helpful hints for teachers who wish to help their students to excel.

The present brief paper seeks to delineate some "helpful hints" that teachers can use in order to help their students to excel. Each of these notions, offered here, are very much in keeping with the ideas offered in the Quality School, which was authored by William Glasser (1990). Furthermore, one's score on this scale (i.e., the number of "YESES" checked) should give any teacher/every teacher needed insight regarding what they are doing with their students, and/or what they should be doing too. Such insights may be found to be very helpful for teachers who are finding it difficult determining what they need to do in order to help their students to excel.

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Exactly what should teachers do if they wish to interact more effectively with their students? The following checklist should provide teachers with a list of things that they can do to more effectively interact with their students, and then provide these teachers with an opportunity to check off whether or not they are doing these types of things with each/every one of their students.

YES   NO

--    --   1. Do you share powerful ideas that should empower your
           students?

--    --   2. Do you have, and are you willing to share with students,
           the knowledge that is most worth having?

--    --   3. Do you strive to build students up, and not tear them
           down?

--    --   4. Do you try to revere your students so that they might
           more likely revere themselves and others?

--    --   5. Are you willing to "invest" your time and effort in your
           students, because you know that they need someone that they
           can "bank" on?

--    --   6. Do you help students to concentrate more on the present
           than on the past, for in so doing, they should master any
           task?

--    --   7. Do you understand that as you share your good ideas with
           your students, that everybody will benefit, including you?

--    --   8. Have you realized that life is the search for positive
           alternatives, and have you endeavored to familiarize your
           students with some of them?

--    --   9. Do you understand that teaching is really learning twice,
           and have you shared with others how becoming a teacher could
           be very nice?

--    --   10. Do you always try to stop, look, and listen to your
           students before you begin to tell them what to do?

--    --   11. Do you always strive to give your students a little
           more, and never settle for anything less?

--    --   12. Do you seek to always do your best, so that your
           students will do likewise, and excel past the rest?

Of course, these are only helpful hints that teachers might follow IF they wish to make better their todays and tomorrows. After all, the past is a closed book, but making things better for our futures, and their's, is truly important, so kindly beware. It is up to us to make our schools better, and it will only happen if we all work together.

Thomas S. Parish and Austin Dopp, Department of Psychology, Upper Iowa University.

Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Thomas S. Parish at [e-mail].