by Travis
Just the word school will conjure emotions. For some, the word elicits sunny days and the warm feeling of heading off to school with new clothes and a box of supplies. Others made have a visceral reaction to the word school. One that is not pleasant.
Schools have not been about individualized learning until recently. The goal of school was to create a shared belief in a system. For most, there were three lessons to learn:
Behave
Conform
Do
Schools, as an institution resembled prisons. Rooms, the student in their own cell, a rigid schedule with bells. Why do schools exist? Do you see a difference between "schooling" and "learning"? How do those two words play out for you?
Can you have individual learning in a setting where the group is supported?
Thankfully the paradigm is shifting. An increasing amount of time and energy is spent on individualizing education so as to meet the needs of the students: what works for Sally may not for Jimmy; what Jimmy needs may not be what Sally needs.
In my work, I come across a great number of new teachers and I am impressed with their quality. What these new teachers possess in the way of educational skill (the art of teaching) is what many of us spent years perfecting.
I tip my hat to all of you first and second year teachers. You are superb and are bringing strength and fresh approaches, new eyes, into a profession I hold dear.
You will impact student learning. You will be a leader in what Richard P. DuFour refers to as systematic interventions not an education lottery.
And that is for the best. Have a great September!
Actually, Mark, I was fairly indifferent about school as a child. I wasn’t particularly thrilled about the first day of school, nor did I lay in bed dreading it. I enjoyed being with my friends and endured the work that came along with it. I got into teaching quite by accident. I became a lifeguard in high school and college, and I found out that I was also expected to teach swimming lessons. Much to my surprise, I enjoyed working with kids, and since I had nothing else planned, decided to go into teaching since I was already enrolled in college. And now here I am, 25 years later, loving my job more than anyone else I know. Looking back on how I became a teacher, it makes sense that I relate best with those kids who neither hate school nor love it; which, frankly constitutes the vast majority of the population!
Seems like teachers tend to fall into two categories:
(1) the ones that hated school (often, like me, because of the forced socialization) but fell into teachering because of some other chain of life events which led them there, and
(2) the ones who loved it and excelled (and in some cases therefore struggle to understand why kids don’t just “want” to turn in their homework).
I think either can be effective, if the teacher is mindful.
There aren’t many teachers who enter having been indifferent about their own experience as a student.
From fb: I wonder how many teachers liked school when they were in school