Scar Tissue from Teachers
Each of us have been influenced both positively and negatively by a teacher in our lives. I’m always amazed when I ask practicing teachers to share their education-related life histories of learning at the similar themes that emerge from a content analysis of their narratives.
Teachers:
- Taught me to be curious about science through hands-on experiences.
- Taught me that I was worthwhile and worthy of attention.
- Taught me to self-regulate my learning.
- Taught me to love the great works of literature.
And yes, there are many negative experiences too:
- Taught me to fear math.
- Taught me to doubt my abilities.
- Taught me I wasn’t as good enough.
- Taught me I could cheat to get by because I didn’t understand.
TEACHERS ARE IMPORTANT PEOPLE IN EACH OF OUR LIVES.
Their actions matter in our lives more than we realize when we are young.
Thus investing in ‘quality’ teaching is worth every one’s effort.
What would happen if everyone suddenly announced to teachers that we know they matter and want to support their efforts to improve their practice?
The education-related assignment I use can be found in my textbook, Self-study teacher research, pp. 95-98.
March 31st, 2011 at 4:26 pm
As a freshman in High School I will always remember my maths teacher…….I hated math (and this is an understatement…) but he was the first to prove to me that I could do better than I thought…..He would encourage us all, he would do his best to present math as a game of logic. In general, he stood out in my mind from the rest of the teachers just for the fact that he made my life easy that year, at least as far as math was concerned. Although his contribution was not significant with regard to my knowledge of math…..even today, at times I feel embarrassed for being so ignorant in math……..he made me realize that things may not always be what we have been made to believe they are. That’s the thought that haunts my practice, as well as the doubts as to whether or not the effect I have on my students is close to his model or not.
I believe that we, teachers, are always in desperate need of feedback for several reasons, so improving our practice necessitates different ways of acquiring it.
September 20th, 2012 at 5:29 pm
Well, when I taught cauuclls, I told my students to use Wolfram Alpha whenever they couldn’t figure out how to do the problem by hand. I told them to try figuring out the steps on the website, then write the solution in their own words, then write with help from WA next to their answer. They seemed happy to do that, and they seemed to instinctively know that if WA did it for them, they weren’t exactly on top of things.Homework was not a big part of the grade, though, and if it were I think there would have been more motivation to use WA as a way to fake-it. Not sure what I would have done in that case. I’m also not sure what to do in the cases where the students view the whole class as an obstacle (like remedial math classes), except to say that I can tell when you’ve done all your homework by computer (the steps are often overly detailed or technically awkward).