What makes a good teacher?

Good teachers seem like that once in a lifetime sunset where you have to remember to breathe. I have been lucky in most of my teachers. I've found teachers who listen to their students, people who kick ass, plain and simple. And like that sunset they are very hard to find and impossible to hold on two. The only teachers I ever get more then once are, unique. Or math teachers who I dislike on principle.

When I read "What makes a good teacher?" I was a little confused. I thought, "Who is this mystical teacher and where do I need to transfer to get her?".  Marie Hassett seemed to understand that no matter what ivy league college you went to that does NOT make you a good teacher. According the my personal high school survival guidebook the qualities of a good teacher are as follows:

1. Passion- Everyone has had that teacher who hates their subject. The kind of teacher who hands out assignments and gives tests or quiz's, by the way I've never understood the difference between the two, and lets their despair of teacher leak thru. I did have a teacher in middle school who was the living incarnation of Professor Binns who has the honor of being Hogwarts only ghost teacher. Just like Binns he droned on and on and on about some white woman who became a missionary. Not the Washington State History he was supposed to teach us. He was a doctor though so the school wouldn't fire him.

2. Opinionated - I suppose this could tie into Passion (see above) but to me it's a separate catagory. My favorite teachers have been the ones who share their lives with their students. Who share their stupid mistakes and the accidental sucesses. Those teachers inspire students to talk about their own lives. My creative writing teacher helped show me how to pour my emotion into my writting instead of holding them in. My history teacher once went on a 5 min rant about how if Washington became its own state we would become District 13. They encourage students to grow, to imagine what their lives could be like without the fear of judgement.

That's the key right there, someone who isn't afraid to be judged is someone to be envied. The secret to life, and a good teacher, is someone who is not afraid to teach their student what they need to know and not what the school believes we need to be taught.

P.S Personal High School Survival Guidebook not available to public at this time