I believe learning depends on mutual respect between teacher and student. Establishing a personal connection and discovering what is exciting or meaningful to a student allows me to find the pathway into a subject that makes the information immediate and worth caring about. The teachers who have affected my life most were the ones who took a personal interest in me, while showing me how any given topic fits into a much larger system. It's important to me to encourage the growth of a student's individual creativity and thought when approaching a subject, rather than relying on strict formulas. Training the mind to be critical and creative is much more useful in the long run than any memorized piece of information on its own.