And, also like many of my colleagues, I was not encouraging enough. How I would like to go back and mark those papers again. I would spend far more time looking for what the students did right and working to build on those strengths, rather than pointing to weaknesses. Raising students' self-esteem, of course, is not enough either. Without solid content, it's like a house with a crumbling foundation.
Solid standards mixed with encouragement is the cement for real learning.
Using a variety of teaching styles I really didn't understand how we all learn in different ways. Today, we know so much more about the brain and a myriad of ways to reach different students. I lectured a lot in my early classroom days. The use of audiovisual equipment was in its primeval stage then, and the machines never seemed to be vailable. Some of those problems still have not changed.