Humility

The last time I was wrong was last night. My roommate and I were watching a movie and she was controlling the remote (which she has trouble with on a regular basis) and she wanted French subtitles on. I told her how to get to the screen to change the subtitle language and then she pressed French just fine. I didn't see her press French, and I told her I didn't think the subtitles would work after she had already started the movie. They did and I apologized, which was surprisingly hard to do. As a teacher, humility is crucial. Teachers must be confident and yet balance that with humility at the same time. I think the key is to be confident in your knowledge without talking down to your students and belittling them. When you make a mistake, acknowledge it and move on. Students will not respond well to arrogance.

Free Topic

In Tony Wagner's The Global Achievement Gap, he discusses several problems with education. One of those problems is teachers not providing criticism and feedback to other teachers about their teaching style. Clearly this is a problem, especially among teachers with tenure. How can teachers fix problems or get out of a rut if no one is there providing constructive criticism about their teaching? Sure, teachers have the occasional review, but they are informed in advance of people coming to their class to watch them. Is this the best way to get an accurate idea of how the teacher really teaches? Wagner takes "learning walks" through many classrooms throughout his book and shows us what goes on in classrooms when teachers don't have time to prepare for a formal observation. Kids are doing busywork. Rarely do students have to do anything that involves critical thinking or problem solving.

Wagner also suggests teachers are "teaching to the test," as in standardized testing. Students are going a mile wide and an inch deep. When I've asked why I have to do something this way? or how does this work? I've actually been told that's just the way it is because we won't be learning the theory behind it. Basically teachers were telling me to turn off my brain and just "plug and chug" which is a phrase my friends and I used to describe math and science. "Plug and chug" means mindlessly putting numbers into the equations without thinking what the equations are doing. That was fine for them, but I always wondered what I was doing and how I was doing it. Personally, I would like to go an inch wide and a mile deep. But in today's world, teachers only have time to teach what is going to be on the next test. I think standardized testing is a waste of time and money, and does not accurately measure improvement or failure.

Efficacy

I'm sure being an astrophysicist is hard, but teaching is a different animal. Self-awareness, confidence, persistence, work ethic, and belief in one's ability are all crucial to becoming a highly effective teacher. For instance, one has to be self-aware because teaching is a relatively non-collaborative profession (unfortunately). Other teachers rarely come around to critique other teachers for improvement, so you have to catch your own mistakes. Confidence and belief in one's ability are two key factors. Kids can tell when you're nervous and if you aren't fully prepared for a lesson. A teacher also has to be persistent. When a student doesn't understand something, the teacher can't just give up and walk away. The teacher needs to be patient and keep trying to help them understand, and he or she should give different explanations to help the student understand. I think work ethic goes along with persistence. Teachers should be working hard to maintain a high level of understanding from everyone in the class. I believe all of these qualities are developed by practice and time. I also believe that in the education department, we don't get enough time to practice these skills. It was mentioned that student teaching should be more like a doctor's internship, and I agree with that somewhat. I think we should be able to have more practice time, but I also think that we need to make money somehow, and I'm also a little impatient.

Inventiveness

In the video, he talked about how teachers are preparing everyone to be college professors. I thought that was interesting because a small number of people actually become college professors. I think teachers are taking away our creativity. Many people undervalue the arts in favor of math and science. Not everyone wants to be a mathematician or a scientist, but I think most people believe that the only jobs worth having are the ones involving math and science. For example at my high school, the international baccalaureate program came into prominence after I graduated. “The International Baccalaureate aims to develop inquiring, knowledgeable and caring young people who help to create a better and more peaceful world through intercultural understanding and respect…” IBO (International Baccalaureate Organization). This sounds like a good thing, but when you're in the IB program, you cannot be in band, orchestra or choir. In my experience, the kids that would want to be in the IB program would also want to be involved in music. The message from this is that music is not important and is a waste of time.

Some teachers do encourage creativity. I had a class in high school for three years called Autonomous Learners Program (ALP). It was a combined English and social studies class. During that class, we rarely had busy work; it was all about using critical thinking to master the material. A large portion of our grade was determined by projects, and creativity was a large portion of our projects grade. That was my favorite class, and I didn't realize it at the time, but that was the one class where creativity was encouraged and everything wasn't by the book. In the video he mentioned that was all start out creative, but as we become older we get educated out of creativity. I think this is true for the most part. In most classes, it's rare to do anything but worksheets.

I believe creativity is a necessary skill for the 21st century. With so many new problems and so much new technology, the same solutions can't possibly work for every situation, and to come up with new solutions involves creativity. Teachers should teach their curriculum with a focus on creativity, because if we don't practice being creative, we could lose that skill altogether.

Role Playing

At first I was not excited about the idea of role playing, but as we started to get into the roles, it became a very interesting and legitimate way for me to learn about No Child Left Behind. If it would have been a lecture instead of role playing, I feel like I would have learned the facts and statistics about the material, which is not necessarily a bad thing, it's just different than what we learned through role playing. We learned the proceedings and how different parties would feel about the legislation first hand. I'm not sure if emotion is necessary in the learning process. In this situation, I think it helped our understanding, but if we were in the lecture setting instead, emotion may not have been as big of a factor. There was definitely bias in who the administrators were addressing. The teachers and the parents of the lower achieving students were definitely not valued in the way that the parents of the higher achieving students and the business owners were. Overall, I think the role playing experience was a legitimate way to learn about No Child Left Behind.

Passion

During my senior year of high school, I decided to take AP Statistics instead of AP Calculus because math wasn't my thing. The teacher was wonderful. He loved math so much that he made me excited about it too. That turned out to be my favorite class. At the end of the year, I even took the AP test and passed. Without his passion for the subject, I never would have succeeded the way I did. I can also recall a time where the teacher lacked enthusiasm. The choir teacher was one of the worst teachers I ever had. I love to sing, but I hated going to choir every day. She didn't take our music seriously, nor did she take any of us seriously. In fact, she was so lazy she had me teach the class at least once a week. That was one of the most frustrating experiences of my life, and thanks to her, I didn't take music seriously until I got to Luther.

Authenticity

I think the limits on expressing authenticity are hard for teachers especially to figure out. In class, we have discussed that teaching is maybe a little bit manipulative, and I think that is part of teaching. However, I think teachers must be authentic in their enthusiasm and commitment. Students can tell if a teacher is not being authentic by the differences between their actions and words (saying one thing and doing another). If students can tell a teacher is not being authentic, they will perhaps not take learning seriously if they think the teacher is not taking the subject seriously. The students could possibly lose trust in the teacher.