Teaching, Bearing the Torch 2/e   Pamela J. Farris
	About the Author

   Greetings and salutations from the McGraw-Hill/Farris website! It seems only yesterday my fellow teachers and I were lauding the virtues of the microwave oven (after, of course, we had decimated a wide variety of food items) and the photographic copying machine. Could we ever get along without either? Now we routinely email family members, friends, and colleagues throughout the world and think nothing of it. Technology has changed teaching for the better. Recently, I read an article which said the greatest technological advancement of the 20th century is the (have a guess and you'll learn the answer later).

   Teaching is the most exciting profession of all! Every day we, as teachers, teach our students, who, in turn, teach us something new about teaching. It is a never ending process as we learn from one another. The key to being a successful teacher at any level is to maintain that childlike curiosity we had as youngsters. We wanted to know what made things work. Why things happened. And what we could do to make our world a better place in which to live.

   Good teachers practice reflective thinking. As the great educational leader Ralph Tyler demonstrated, we need to remain ever alert as to how we can improve our teaching. Every night before going to sleep, Tyler asked himself three simple questions:

What did I learn today?

What does it mean?

How can I use it?

These three questions keep us on our toes as teachers, just as our students do.
   Teaching is a joy and a challenge. Relish those teachable moments that arise in your classroom. And cherish your students, for they hold the future in their hands.