This past year I had the misfortune to take the most boring class of my college career. Duped by the title - 'Dark Age and Medieval Europe' - I thought the class would be fascinating, an archaeological romp through one of my favorite periods of history. Turns out real archaeology is not like Indiana Jones - at least not at the University of Nottingham. J.K. Rowling's Professor Binns became an astonishing reality. Everyone was in a stupor by the end of the lecture because the lecture's enthusiasm was slim to nil. That course killed archaeology for me. I lost all interest in the subject and did the minimal to pass my exams.
This experience has thoroughly convinced me that enthusiasm can make or break a course. Yet there is an important distinction to make between enthusiasm for the subject and enthusiasm for teaching the subject. In the first case, the teacher's desire to talk about the material outweighs students' actual comprehension of it. Teachers of this sort usually ramble on long after students have lost interest, either unaware of or unconcerned with their lack of attention. Over-enthusiasm can kill a student's budding interest in a subject, just by talking it to death or frustrating it with impulsive and unclear formulations.
The solution to this I feel lies in the axiom: enthusiasm must be infectious to be effective. This is a great guideline for determining how to be enthusiastic about teaching. How do you make enthusiasm infectious? Involve the students in it. Make them share your enthusiasm. My high school choir director used humor to help us enjoy music the same way he did. He could make us laugh at our mistakes so that we weren't afraid to make them. I loved singing for him. And I loved learning how to sing better. My science teacher was far more reserved but no less effective. His enthusiasm was tempered by practicality, but the excitement in his eyes never failed to affect us. Effective teachers don't just show their enthusiasm to students; they share it with them.
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