Passion (Disposition)

As a young child, I never really had a passion for writing. If you were to read my stories from my elementary years, you would realize very quickly that I was not the most "inspired" young kid. However.....however. My freshman year of high school, I had Beth Fetweis. Hands down the most passionate person in regards towards the English language. She was so excited to teach you, that she could make you pay attention to anything. She not only engaged my interest in poetry, but now there is not a lack of contraction that goes unnoticed by my watchful eyes.

However, I wouldn't say that it is necessarily passion of the subject matter that makes someone a good teacher, rather a passion for teaching. It was the way she presented information that made it interesting. Up to this point, I couldn't have cared less about the difference between to and too, or there and their. It was her desire to teach me that made me respect her, and that made it exponentially easier to learn from her. To me, passion = intelligence. If it is every teachers goal to teach children, and we assume that the smartest teachers are the most effective at doing this, then why could we not also assume that those teachers that are most effective by way of passionate teaching are also the smartest? Mrs. Fetwieses ability to inspire me to care about her class was one of a kind, as it carried over to my sophomore year when I had a teacher that was exceedingly dull.