Now this would be an interesting film - and an interesting take on the doc Waiting for Superman which opened last month and ripped public education mercilessly in our country.
Now, let me preface this post with this: there is terrible teaching that goes on. Foolish practices exist. Schools often are set up to fail (had an interesting conversation this morning about the difficulties of teaching and coaching. My colleague made a great point, how often did it happen in the past (before one did not need to be a teacher in order to coach) that schools hired teachers not because they were any good at teaching but because they could simply coach and keep a sports program running).
But spend any time in any public school and you will quickly realize much of this blame can be heaped on students as well. Just give Mark Bauerlein's book, The Dumbest Generation a glance and you can see that many are quite willing to do this.
So why not Waiting for Super Kids?
I just read Facebook status that went like this -
"Hates school so damned much."
And it was liked quickly by two other people.
Now how are we to teach effectively with such attitudes? This reminds me of a Facebook fan club last year that read "I attend school mainly to see my friends."
Now maybe it's a catch-22. You have great teachers and kids will not hate school. Or maybe having great kids who are willing to be positive and learn and work will cause teaching to improve drastically.
I don't know.
1 comment:
Definitely, I've noticed in classes with teachers who make a subject interesting and fun that the kids are more likely to attend, more likely to respond to the teacher's efforts. Though, I have yet to see a class in which a less interactive teacher become great because of a 'ready to learn' student body. I think for students (that I've noticed), even those who love learning, tend to fall short of expectations when a teacher is less than inviting or one who makes even the most interesting subject dull-- students react to the vibe of the teacher, and if it isn't positive, most likely the students won't react positivly. This is speaking on a grand level.
I think on a level where teachers are willing to be 'great' but respond to the vibe of the uncaring student body, they fall into the same attitude, and vise versa.
What I am trying to say is, in my opinion, teachers are great or they aren't. I'm not sure it's possible to 'make' a good teacher. It's a talent. Of course, people never know until they try. Maybe this is why we have bad teachers. They just didn't know if they had it or not.
Post a Comment