And that's the key. They can get excited about their subject no matter how many times they may already have held forth on it. They vivify their subject and absolutely avoid ever becoming mechanical or dry. They push themselves just as they push their students and in the end their courses become memorable learning experiences. Most students, past and present, yearn for teachers and mentors who will light a fire under them.
Good teachers create a learning community in which their students challenge each other.
These teachers encourage disciplined thinking and stress the importance of communicating with clarity, cogency, and force. They promote the ability to draw implications from research findings and the ability to explain findings to others. They teach, also, the variety of ways we gain knowledge of ourselves, society and the universe. Teaching and scholarship at Whitman these days are being transformed by new technologies that tremendously enhance access to data, interactive discussions, and sophisticated experimentation. The information highway has been a great boon for learning and teaching.