The Courage to Teach - Jane Tompkins discovered that her goal as a teacher had been to put on “performance,” thus distancing herself from students and subject. Do you identify with her self-criticism? If so, do you share Tompkins’s diagnosis of fear as the driving force behind this distancing? In what ways other than “performance” do teachers set themselves apart?

Yes, I think that sometimes when we turn away from our own reality and we create a world apart or we  make a routine to perform in front of our students forgetting student`s needs. In fact, the fear of our own weaknesses can create a kind of wall between the teacher, the student and the subject. 

We forget to supplement or to help others to learn and we only concentrate on showing our skills and we feel filled with satisfaction when others recognize our work as teachers. 

Another way that teachers set themselves away is when they looking to fill their need to feel superior or feel excessive anxiety   to be the best teachers regardless of their own needs and needs of others, at  the point to do not  listen to  what the student want to say.

On the contrary, a good teacher must learn to know himself/herself what are his/her weaknesses to improve them  and strengths to emphasize them.

I think every teacher has their own weaknesses but we must learn to form our own identity, to manage our feelings and attitudes in this way can exercise teaching with awareness about what it means to be a teacher. 

It is  no need to separate ourselves or separate us to the pupils, we must balance our relationships within the limits of coexistence but not limiting ourselves to extremes. 

It is a normal situation that sometimes we feel fear for example in front of a new group of students, but we must learn to manage our emotions to relate in a natural way and not put unnecessary limits. 

Or commit the mistake to only show  how smart a teacher can be or limit our students to express themselves. We forget that students are the most important factor in teaching-learning process.