Teacher's day

Teacher's day is just passed (Sep 5th) yesterday. Being a teacher myself and taught & being taught by many teachers then and now, I thought of putting across some of my thoughts in this context. What I would expect from a typical teacher are:

• Don't teach, inspire people instead! Make them think. Ask a practical question before introducing a new theory. E.g. If you are teaching chemistry, ask what happens to the water temperature if some salt is dissolved in it - does it remain the same, increases or decreases and why? Where do you find practical application of it? That will make the students think and inspire them to learn more and ask more questions.
• Reduce your ego! The amount of ego we have is inversely proportional to the amount of knowledge we possess and directly proportional to the no. of weaknesses we have. If we make a mistake, I don't think there is anything wrong in admitting it in front of the students (irrespective of their ages) for there is no "know-all" person in the whole world.
• Never underestimate students' capability; they are smarter than you think they are (again, irrespective of their ages). They also do have their senses and thinking capabilities. Let's respect it.
• Everybody does mistakes. I don't believe in punishing students for their wrongdoings unless they are repeating it many times. E.g. If some students arrive late to the class everyday, you can try to pleasantly embarrass them by asking rest of them to clap or stand-up when they come in late. Chances are that they come late to the class from next day is very less. Try it! (I had a headmaster in my elementary school, who used to whip with a rope for even very small mistakes of students. I still remember him not with respect, but still with that fear! I don't think anybody would like to be remembered that way. :-)
• Give lot of practical examples and real-life stories. There's nobody who is not interested in listening to stories. If it's a science subject, show practicals in the class. We had a science teacher in 9th std, who used to bring lot of apparatus from the lab to the class to show practicals. He was a real inspiration to many of us.
• Walk the talk (which many of us fail to do) before 'preaching' anything to students. If you expect them to be in the class on time, you better be in the class on time always. All other reasons are just excuses. If you want them to be clean, make sure that you erase the board every time before you leave the class. If you commit something to them on a particular day, stick to it.
• Do socialize with students - talk about their life, games, movies, outings, etc. It will help them open-up. They will be more interactive in the class and there will be less trouble makers
• Never gossip! Even though this looks silly, I've seen people gossiping (about students, other faculty, their relationships and many others which I can't mention here) in schools & colleges. In certain cases, I've seen higher authorities taking decisions in professional colleges based on gossips without even bothering to verify the facts, which is really unprofessional.
• Read, read and read a lot. Read subject related stuff; read outside the subject area (e.g. technical / related magazines, websites, management related contents, etc. which indirectly help in getting to know more about the subject and the profession) and 'read' about current affairs. Take it from me, this will help us while teaching our subjects.

I think if we treat students as one among us, everything will fall into place. 

Disclaimer: These are just my thoughts. Any resemblance or similarity with any situation or person is purely unintentional.