Achieving Excellence in the Classroom: What Makes a Teacher Great?

By Dr. Robert L. Lawson

This book contains a panacea of ideas relevant to engage both young and adult learners in a classroom, workshop or course setting.  Teaching strategies, classroom management strategies and motivational empowerment tools are all shared in one book designed to captiva

• Language: English
• Publisher: Authors' Tranquility Press
• Release date: Apr 11, 2022
• ISBN: 9781958179215

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Copyright © 2022 by Dr. Robert L. Lawson.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law. For permission requests, write to the publisher, addressed Attention: Permissions Coordinator, at the address below.

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Achieving Excellence in the Classroom/Robert L. Lawson

Hardcover: 978-1-958179-19-2

Paperback: 978-1-958179-20-8

eBook: 978-1-958179-21-5

CONTENTS

Preface

Acknowledgments

Dedication

Introduction

The Thinker

Ultimate Performance

Purposeful Teaching

Success is by Design

Achieving Excellence in the Classroom

What Makes a Teacher Great?

Education is Your Golden Ticket

The Teacher as a Visionary Leader

Top Ten Lessons on Student Engagement

The Value of Research

What Makes an Effective Teacher?

Great Teachers Motivate Others

Characteristics of Great Teachers

Qualities of an Excellent Teacher

Teachers Should Always Keep It Real

Caring Makes a Great Teacher

Students Never Forget How Good You Made Them Feel

Greatness is a Matter of Perspective

Teachers Need to Be Rejuvenated

Why Students Will Remember Their Teachers

Classroom Discipline and Management

Perception

Someone’s Child

The Master Teacher

The Touch of a Master’s Hand

Transformational Teaching and Technology

The Power of Influence

Student Voices

A Collaborative Learning Approach

The Recipe for Greatness

Preface

George Washington Carver once said, Education is the key to unlock the golden door of freedom. To those who would take heed to those words and act accordingly, the statement is indeed a most powerful and true one. Education comes from the Latin word educere which means to draw out.

I have often thought that to draw out, one must first put something in. As we teach people how to learn, grow, develop, and acquire knowledge then, education becomes a two-way street of sharing ideas, experiences, and situations that are constantly informing our decision-making processes. This book encapsulates a plethora of ideas that are most germane and apropos to the growth, development, and refinement of what teachers are required to do daily.

Education is the extraordinary impetus that drives empowerment. The more knowledge an educator acquires then applies, the more impactful it becomes to the teaching and learning process. Your repertoire for what you do on a daily basis expands. Your wheelhouse becomes filled with an abundance of memorable experiences, powerful strategies, enlightening quotes, and rich interactions which you can then pay forward through the further inculcation into the young minds before you or to the associates around you thus demonstrating how they can become independent thinkers and doers for themselves. This book was written primarily with that intent in mind.

As a teacher, as you empower your students by helping them to discover their own strengths and develop their confidence levels in themselves, the more their minds are going to expand and grow. It was the great poet, Oliver Wendell Holmes who once said, A mind once stretched to a new idea never returns to its original dimensions. So, the more confidence they develop in themselves, the more they will begin to utilize their own skill sets and abilities more effectively. You can function as their chief encourager in guiding and helping them to do so.

This is when the excitement factor is going to take over in their lives. As it does so, the more independent they are going to become in their own thinking. Because of your instructional guidance, your knowledge, and your wisdom, they will learn to trust their own thoughts and ideas more and they will be willing to take more risks. After all, what is a teacher? A teacher is someone who will take you to a place you wouldn’t go by yourself. This excitement that begins to captivate the mind of a student is called enthusiasm. One of our greatest writers, Ralph Waldo Emerson once said, Nothing great was ever accomplished without enthusiasm. What a powerful statement. So, just like the cover of the book, I need for the reader to clearly understand the message that is illustrated there, education leads to empowerment, empowerment leads to enthusiasm and enthusiasm leads to excellence.

It was Colin Powell, who once said, If you are going to achieve excellence in big things, you develop the habit in little matters. Excellence is not an exception; it is a prevailing attitude. It is my hope that teachers around the world will pick up this book, read it from cover to cover and glean from it something substantive that will be of significant benefit to themselves or to someone with whom they interact. As they continue to move forward in their own individual lives perhaps, they can embrace and share Mario Andretti’s idea that Desire is the key to motivation, but its determination and commitment to an unrelenting pursuit of your goal – a commitment to excellence - that will enable you to obtain the success you seek.

Patrick O’Donnell, principal at the Ohio Valley Christian School in Gallipolis, Ohio recently shared with me in a conversation something that the great Charles Spurgeon once said and I’m paraphrasing here. There’s a bit of a correlation between what Andretti says and what Spurgeon intimates. Spurgeon implies that four key things can ensure your success. First, you must have that internal burning desire which is followed by your level of giftedness. Even though you have the giftedness, it must be further validated by an external witness. Usually, it’s the external witness that in each instance will provide you with an opportunity to put your giftedness to use. Once others realize you have the power or the gift, that’s when the opportunity comes for you to make your impact.

This book is filled with teaching strategies, case studies, ideas for classroom management and so much more. My hope is that you find it not only intriguing and engaging but highly informative and replete with practical application methodologies that can be used immediately. This book is a call to action for teachers around the globe. As a teacher, your words and your actions matter, and they place you in the most powerful position you will ever hold as someone who is able to influence and change lives. Blessings to each of you. You have the most powerful job on earth and in your hands, you hold just one more tool that can help you to perform your job admirably, respectfully, responsibly, and effectively.

Acknowledgments

I want to take this opportunity to acknowledge the supreme creator (God) for creating opportunity after opportunity after opportunity for me to share my skill sets with so many others. I wish to acknowledge all the parents, guardians, kindergarten, primary, elementary, secondary and higher education instructors who have made it possible for all of us to acquire and enjoy the benefits of education.

The significant role of principals, superintendents, curriculum directors, boards of education, department chairs, support staff including bus drivers, food service personnel and the janitorial staff must not be overlooked or understated.

I have seen firsthand the powerful impact that secretaries, treasurers, personnel directors, administrative assistants, librarians, coaches, and tutors can have upon the lives of others. Most importantly, if it were not for the students who enter our classrooms on a daily basis, there would be no need for those of us who teach to do so. What an incredible and life altering profession it is and continues to be. Thank all of you for allowing me the opportunity to be called teacher. I am indeed forever grateful and for me, this is my highest honor. Thank all of you for allowing me to serve with distinction and honor. I am indeed humbled and grateful beyond measure.

What a phenomenal honor it has been to be employed by Gallia Academy High School, Marshall University, Shawnee State University, Georgetown Jr.-Sr. High School, Chillicothe High School, Ohio University Chillicothe, Ohio University Zanesville and most recently the Ohio Valley Christian School.

Dedication

This book is dedicated to the memory of my loving wife, Dr. Shannon Lynn Lawson, who left us on November 1 of 2016. She was an extraordinary wife and mother. Her life was cut short at the age of 53 by a rare form of neuroendocrine cancer which attacks the liver. My sons and I loved and still love her dearly. The memories we have of her will be cherished forever. She will live in our hearts for eternity. Shannon Lawson is one of those rare women who will never be forgotten.

She was the true traveler in the family and before her passing, managed to take our youngest son, Michael with her to visit Rwanda in South Africa. It turned out to be a trip he would never forget. My wife, Shannon, was born to Melvin and Merrilly Strom on June 7, 1963. She was one of three siblings, her sisters being Holly Strom who currently resides in Texas and Tina (Strom) Mealy who currently lives in Florida.

My wife was born in California, lived for a while in Texas, in fact, she graduated from Plano High School in Texas in 1981 and her graduating class had over 2,000 students in it. We attended her twenty - year class reunion in 2001 and over 625 students showed up! When you contrast that with this small-town Ohio boy, there were only 42 people in my graduating class.

I was introduced to her through a mutual friend by the name of Virda Catalino. When I met my future wife, she was living with her parents in Ben Salem, Pennsylvania working in a head-start facility upon her return from South Africa. She had also lived in Florida for a time. Shannon’s father had worked for the Case Tractor Company and as a family, they had traveled all over.

My wife explained to me that even though I had grown up in America and that my ancestors were slaves that I still only had a remote idea of what disenfranchisement was. She witnessed the plight of Black Africans first-hand and was incredibly sympathetic to the cause. She lived in South Africa during the time the Apartheid System was in place. My wife possessed a deep understanding of the plight of the African National Congress in its quest to seek equality and justice for its black brothers and sisters as illustrated in Nelson Mandela’s book, A Long Walk to Freedom.

She would tell me many stories that helped me to realize how complicated the world is in which we live. Ethnic cleansing, for example, was a perverted system placed in effect to eradicate the world of a complete race of people.

It wasn’t always about the pigmentation of a person’s skin. Sometimes people could be all the same color and still hate each other because of distinguishing tribal features and factions of division that resulted in wars. This was highly evident between the Tutsi’s and the Hutu’s. There might be instances where one person’s nose would look slender or be differently shaped than another. This would cause one tribe to look with disdain on another and much of this kind of behavior led to the 1994 mass genocide in Rwanda where thousands upon thousands of people were brutally killed and buried in mass graves.

It was during the 1980’s that my wife spent six years living in Johannesburg, South Africa and graduated with a four-year degree from Witswatersrand University. After she traveled to West Virginia from Pennsylvania and rented an apartment not too far from where I lived, we got married on September 29, 1990.

Shannon began attending Marshall University in Huntington, West Virginia and acquired a master’s degree. I had been working there as an administrator and had done so for thirteen years. However, I left Marshall University and took a job as the Director of Continuing Education at Shawnee State University in Portsmouth, Ohio. In 1996, we moved to Portsmouth, Ohio. I already had one son, Robert Leon Lawson Jr, had been born on January 27, 1983. Shannon was a great stepmother to my first son. We had two children of our own. James Allen was born on March 11, 1991, and Michael Emerson was born on February 4, 1994.

Shannon worked for a while at the Portsmouth Public Library but also began teaching an African History course at Shawnee State University. So, for a while, she served as an adjunct faculty member. My wife was exceptionally gifted at helping people, especially her students, to understand that South Africa was just one of numerous countries on the continent of Africa and that the manner in which it was portrayed as a poor country by the American media was simply a tool to make people think that all the villagers were all uneducated, poor and were just third world countries that had nothing to offer society as a whole when nothing could be further from the truth. My wife spent an inordinate amount of time helping people to understand that many of the Blacks in South Africa and in many other parts of the various countries in Africa were in fact highly educated, had access to rich minerals and vast resources and were incredibly well off even sending many of their offspring to America to acquire even more education as they were wealthy and could afford to do so. My wife was always excited about breaking down the erroneous stereotypes that existed only in the minds of people because of the media’s misguided portrayal of the villagers who lived on the continent of Africa.

It was only a matter of time before many in the English Department at Shawnee State University discovered what a wealth of knowledge my wife had via her extensive travels, her knowledge base, her people skills, and her education that she was subsequently hired on a fulltime basis to serve as a senior instructor. My wife was indeed an incredibly sedulous, thorough, and meticulous worker who took her subject matter seriously, made sure that she was adequately prepared and put her students first.

I learned so much from that woman and used many of the exercises, tips, strategies, assignment overview sheets and ideas in my own classes since we were both English teachers. Shannon was an incredible giver who hid nothing. If she knew she had something that worked well, she wanted to share it with you or her students. Her main goal was to enhance the student learning process. She even took a delegation of Shawnee State University students to Rwanda in South Africa on two separate occasions. That’s just the kind of woman she was. She wanted her students to know the difference between truth and myth so if she was in a position to enable you with the opportunity to see and discover the truth for yourself, so that your informed experience would stop you from perpetuating a falsehood and introduce you to a whole new way of life while simultaneously dispensing myths and revealing truths to the minds of others, she was going to do it.

One of our strengths was being able to sit down with each other and talk about the most effective ways to reach students in the classroom. It was one of her passions. She was in love with her work, and she was at her best when she was in the classroom. She held her students to a very high standard, and they had to meet that standard. I’m having a spiritual moment right now because I can feel her standing over me as I write this, and the tears are streaming down my face.

Who else would I even consider dedicating this book to? There is no one other than, the other doctor in the house, Dr. Shannon L. Lawson. Some people it is true have an honorary doctoral degree. That is not the degree my wife owns. Her doctorate is an earned doctorate. My wife worked her way up from Senior Instructor at Shawnee State University to the rank of Associate Professor. She enrolled in Ohio University’s Communications program, completed two full years of course work, took a sabbatical to write her dissertation and our sons, her parents, and her sisters were right there to watch her walk across the stage and become Dr. Shannon L. Lawson as her degree was conferred. My wife was one of the most intellectually gifted, most motivated, and most skilled women I have ever known in my entire life. Her skills and the way she carried herself are not easy to match. To my sons,