Dear Graduate teacher,

There is no-one more powerful in a student's life than a passionate teacher who loves learning.

Learning is exciting, as when you want to learn, you become engaged. Learning is contagious when it is shared with others and they feel your passion. Learning is social as people are social beings and so adding a social element to learning stimulates learning.

Education is one way for students to emerge from poverty and live a fulfilled life with many choices. All your students should have the world as their palette to learn from and grow with, to follow their passions. The classroom now has no walls. How students are led to find their passion and are incited to learn is your responsibility. We need to light the fire within them so they become self directed learners.

In education kids matter most to me. I ask myself are they learning, do they want to learn and how can we help them want to learn?

Noam Chomsky says the purpose of education is for people to determine how to learn on their own. I agree with his definition and it's one of my aims to help students to become self-directed in their learning, to take control over their learning. To be empowered to learn. How do we do this? Do we allow students to become self-directed learners?

There is no sense in waiting to be taught. With today's technology in their hands students can learn about anything they desire. Students having the desire and will to learn, is what can be the challenge. Children start out asking so many questions and yet by grade four they learn to sit quietly and follow the rules and not speak until invited. We need to allow students to ask those questions, however hard they may be, and to encourage them to keep thinking and asking. Learning to ask questions and quality questions that evoke deep thinking, reasoning and comparisons is more important than getting answers.

It's essential for students to find their passion and then follow it as following their passion makes work become play. This is also true for teachers, if teaching is your passion your work will become play. Steve Jobs said people with passion can change the world. And they do, everyday.

People with passion don't give up on their work. They sacrifice and don't settle until their job is done to impeccable standards. Good teachers never give up on students and set the highest standard suitable for each student.
They don't work for dollars and they think of the student first. How do you get the passion to be a teacher? Why are you becoming a teacher? There has to be more than the holidays or the early finish that the media promotes teachers have in their career.

Take the power in your hands and use your passion to inspire, incite and infuse students to become life long learners, in pursuit of their passion so they can change their world.

Congratulations on becoming a teacher, I hope learning is your passion,

Jenny Ashby