How To Be A Successful Teacher

I read an interesting interview with John Paul DeJoria of Paul Mitchell Systems (Entrepreneur Magazine, July 2009). He's a billionaire now but he's been homeless twice. He started as a door-to-door encyclopedia salesman. In the article, he says,

The difference between successful and unsuccessful people is that successful people do the things that unsuccessful people don't do.

As a door-to-door encyclopedia salesman, he said that 39 people would slam the door in his face before the 40th person would talk with him. Would you continue after 10 "nos?" 20? 25? 50? 100? If you want to be successful you have to ignore the "nos" and see them as scenery on the road to the "yeses" and success.

What are the things that successful teachers do that unsuccessful teachers don't? Does it bother you when a class does not go well? How do you react when you take over a class and the students complain because the previous teacher did things differently? Are problems challenges? Do you invest more time than you get paid for?

Obviously, there are many things that differentiate successful teachers from unsuccessful ones as well as successful people from unsuccessful ones. The main difference? Attitude. Successful teachers/people see themselves as successful and always strive to be successful. They know that it is what they think that is important, not what others think.