Just like getting to know a new neighbor, so a teacher (as well as students) must get to know the students in his or her classroom. Getting to know students is vital to classroom success because the more a teacher knows their students the better they can communicate with them.
It seems so funny to me how everday I pass by tons of other students, most of which I don't even know. People are so caught up in their day-to-day lives that they hardly even take the time to notice others, or whats going on around them. A simple "hey" to a passerby wouldn't hurt every once in a while would it? Or what about stopping long enough on the way to a class to look up at the bright blue sky? The world can be such a beautiful place if we would just take a second to look around.
I think that that is why sometimes adults will envy children -because they have time to "stop and smell the roses". Our world is so chaotic that its like a never ending cycle of do this and do that's...What about just being? I think that I'm right when I say that everyone needs to remember that there is so much more to life than routine, and it's ok to break away once in a while and truly live.
As a teacher it will be my responsibility to impress upon myself as well as my students that classroom time will not always be the same old routine. We will take trips and go to other areas in the school to make use of its resources -such as a trip to the school library. We will have class exercises where we will take the time to get to know our peers and even me as their teacher. My main goal with such excercises would be to build a classroom community where everyone knows each other well.
