Source:  http://www.teachandlearn.ca/blog/2007/11/16/conversation-with-pre-service-teachers-teacher-as-learner/

In this blog post, the author discusses his approach to “giving up”the role of the authoritarian teacher and showing his students that he is still a learner, too.  It does require an interesting bit of psychology.  A teacher does not want to give up the sense that they are knowledgeable of their subject matter, but at the same time, they want to encourage students to learn by modeling the behavior of a learner.  His approach of showing that he is willing to learn more about his own subject area would work well in most instances.  It is a hard balance to achieve, as most of the respondents to this blog entry indicated, and it does require us teachers to let students know something about us personally.

I am the kind of teacher who loves to attend workshops and conferences as part of my continued learning.  I let my students know that I am still learning things.  I talk with them about the classes that I am taking, math activities that I have found on the web, and so on.  What I have learned as a fairly new teacher is that if the students don’t make a personal connection with you of some sort, they are far less likely to put their efforts into learning what you have to offer.