What qualities makes a good teacher.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9qfQMQW4e1c

http://lindanathan.com/tag/abdi-ali/

Usually tend to think, in the image of the teacher, as the actor, who often see in movies of education, what we see in so many movies, but the reality of education is another.

    http://lindanathan.files.wordpress.com

(Extract)
From its inception, BAA has had a dual curriculum: arts and academics. The
importance of teaching the arts for art’s sake has been a given from the school’s
beginning. Of enormous importance was the belief that studying, making, and
integrating art into academic subjects would vividly engage students of widely
varying abilities and thus increase enormously their success in high school.
We integrate the arts and academics
into many classroom experiences. For
example, imagine a math class in which
students are working with a composer
on syncopation in order to deepen their
understanding of the quadratic equation
they are studying.
In Spanish classes, students study Frida Kahlo, Diego Rivera, Gabriela Mistral, or Celia Cruz. They research these
famous Latin American artists and
scholars and then present or enact them
in costume, often with props, and with
a deep sense of their history and context.
And, what a meaningful way to learn a
language. Our visual arts students are
exposed to Spanish when, for example,
they are taught by an artist in residence
from Mexico who communicates solely
in Spanish.
In engineering classes, BAA students are introduced to math and science principles by learning how to design and create a container of their choice. The array
of belt, cell phone, and CD holders that young people can imagine and produce
is impressive. Students then work with a visual arts teacher to produce brochures
and advertisements for their containers. They add more levels of intellectual and
creative learning to their projects while strengthening their reading and writing
skills.
We are committed to empowering students to be active learners. The BAA is
a very lively place, filled with the sounds of students creating, working, and rehearsing throughout the day, into the evening, and on weekends. One also can
note how the high level of student engagement in arts courses carries over to the
humanities and math, writing and science.
Our young people need to be immersed in artistic experiences. They must also develop strong intellectual skills. At the BAA, this is what we call being artistscholars. We believe that young people come to appreciate and understand beauty. They use that same appreciation to be creative, mature thinkers in society.

Mr Ali, BAA
Boston

Abraham came to BAA as a visual artist with lots of avoidance behavior about doing school and doing school well. As a second-language speaker (Spanish is his first language), his English skills were not well developed. He had been shuffled around in middle school and didn’t have the habit of coming to school on time or doing homework. First year (9^th grade) was hard for him. He was overwhelmed in his classes and had a hard time accepting that he didn’t understand the work. He was used to getting by and getting passed on.
He learned quickly at BAA that this is not our way. He was told he needed to go to summer reading after his 9^th grade year and that’s when we began to diagnose the depth of his reading and learning issues. He needed a great deal of one-to-one attention and he was lost in the regular school year. He thrived in summer reading (which has a teacher-student ratio as low as 1 to 6), but he got lost in the shuffle again in 10^th grade. He wanted to give up. Friends in the visual arts department pushed and prodded him. They helped him wake up on time and even confront where he was stuck. He had the opportunity as a visual artist to explore his creative sides. He grew in his abilities to understand how to use color, paint and composition. He began to acknowledge how to move from one medium to another, and to incorporate his love of music into his art. This emerging sense of how to transfer passions and interests may have helped him buckle down to do math, writing and reading, all of which came much harder to him. Key to his success was an advisor who also wouldn’t let go of him. A tutor and teachers kept teaching him about the importance of time management. Every time he would begin to slip away and practice avoidance a teacher would call him and say, “Get to school. You promised you could do this work. You promised you would try until you finished.”