I joke around with my TAs saying, 'You become your student.'
Influential teachers are the ones that can get on the students level and can put themselves in their students' shoes. If a teacher can do that, the student understands, learns, and grows much faster.
My TAs spend a lot of time with their students and with time (and training) they become influential teachers. It is great! The student starts to learn and grow more than the TA expected, and parents and teachers are excited.
After spending a lot of time with someone you tend to start acting similarly to the person. The student starts developing traits like the TA and....
...the TA develops traits like the student: (look closely at the picture, see similarities?) Manzi is the student and he is reading and writing in English. Tony is the TA and he did not bit his nails before he started teaching Manzi.
It is a small price to pay to be an influential teacher :)
