Making my This I Believe Statement Come True

In order to make my statement come true, I know that I will need to do several things. The first thing I will need to do is to keep what I believe in the forefront of my mind every day. My statement is this: I believe that as a teacher, I have the unique opportunity to impact the youth of our nation.
The second thing I need to do is figure out the best way to impact my students. Students are interested in different things. One way to impact anyone, not just students, is to get to know them. Find out what they are interested in and try to find some common ground. In general, students are not so diverse that we have nothing in common with them, but sometimes it just takes searching for. Some people take to sarcasm. If students are somewhat sarcastic, it may just be that you have to act the same way in order to get their attention and have an impact on them. Whatever the case may be, as a teacher, I have to find out what my students are interested in and try to relate to them in some way.
The third thing I need to do is to keep them on my side. I don't need to go to war with my students. Sometimes this is easier said than done, but it is important. The way that I deal with students is how I can determine how they feel about me. If I just yell at them all the time or every time they are not doing what I ask, they're not going to like me and they probably will stop listening. There are other, better, ways of dealing with the same issues. Sometimes it is easier to go around the room and ask people individually to sit down or stop talking, rather than just raising my voice to the entire class. Chances are, it is not the entire class that is talking anyway.
These are just a few of the things that I can do in order to make my life as a teacher easier and to fulfill my goal of impacting the youth of our nation, one by one.