Sunday, December 14, 2008

not that interesting

to most of you, anyway. probably my mom will pretend to be interested, because that's what moms do. but a math teacher guy wrote this, and i am happy to say that i can (mostly) answer yes. (except for on some days when i'm annoyed. and yes, i am feeling pretty smug with myself right now, thank you very much....)

Evolution of an Educator:

At first, your students don't know anything because you teach poorly, and you know this. Then, you become happily aware that some students are learning. You know that other students still aren't, but you are pedagogically nearsighted and can make only blurry distinctions between the two camps. Your teaching improves and the ranks of the Is Learning camp swells and you know the members of the Isn't Learning camp by name. You develop better methods of tracking achievement and you know exactly what the students who aren't learning haven't learned. Moreover, as you teach, you begin to anticipate the material that will confuse these students. You realize that your intervention can effectively transfer a student from one camp to the other. At a certain point, the technical challenges to increasing student achievement disappear, but the moral challenge remains. Will you do it? Every day, every hour, every student for 180 days, will you do it?

2 comments:

Charlo said...

My Biology teacher in H.S. didn't do it. Tenure made him LAZY.

Now that you are a total pro, keep your expectations high. I respected teacher's more when they refused to lower the bar. I learned more from them and enjoyed it more than the classes with teachers who made things easy. Their classes were easy but BORING.

You, Pood, were not brought to this earth to inspire boredom.

I'm sure Dr. Reed would agree with me.

Bexie Funk said...

that's why your a great teacher. i loved teachers that i actuallly learned stuff with, charlo is right the others were BORING! you rock my world!