I've always known that part of being a good teacher is instilling excitement in your students for what they're learning. However, I have been allowing the stress and frustrations to take away the joy of teaching. After a particularly bad day, when my students were not doing anything they were supposed to do, I went to another 5th-grade teacher for advice. She told me that she acts every day for her students - she is so overly enthusiastic that they are drawn in. Her example was that, when talking about symmetry, she said, "Doesn't that blow your mind?!? You can fold it in half and it's the same on both sides!" I tried it the next day. I acted like everything we were doing was the greatest discovery ever made, and it worked. My students responded much better. It certainly did not eliminate all behavior issues, but at least I had fun, and my students were more engaged.
I realized that life is a little like that. If you act like you're enjoying it, you really do.
"...don't just do the minimum that will get you by. Do your best. Work from the heart for your real Master, for God... Keep in mind always that the ultimate Master you're serving is Christ. The sullen servant who does shoddy work will be held responsible. Being a follower of Jesus doesn't cover up bad work." -Colossians 3:23
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