How to Teach

So I've been thinking really hard on how to teach students and how to get them into what they're reading and how to get them motivated to work hard and try their best in life. I'm about halfway there to my degree, so I feel I must begin to mold my abilities and figure out what kind of teacher I am. In catechism I sort of have to stick to a schedule and use small group discussion to teach my students about God. With middle-schoolers I normally get shy kids (normally girls), or kids that act stupid on purpose because the feel they will fit in easier (something I'll never understand). With highschoolers it is a little easier, except my small group is a bit quiet, and normally to get them to speak (or to get some of them to stop acting like elementary students and start acting like the young adults they are) I have to give some info about myself without bringing the whole conversation to myself.

To try to solve this problem I examined myself during this past week and looked at my strengths and weaknesses. A really good strength is that I can give a good talk when necessary and I can now control my voice when talking. A weakness is that I can't fully control my emotions yet, etc, etc. Over this past week I realized something though, I like to read a lot. It finally snapped that this community of spoiled ungrateful kids that live in Brownsville TX are not aware of how much of a comfort zone they live in and about what is going on in the outside world. I have decided that I will have my students read books like Zlata's Diary (thank you Erin Gruell for recommending it), "The Freedom Writers Diaries" "A Child Called 'it' " and "Chinese Cinderella" to get them to realize that they are lucky to live here and that they can accomplish their goals. At the moment is is very early morning and I'm typing this down because I normally forget what I was thinking in the morning, but I really want to develop these ideals, any advice?

-lucas