2/26/Week2
Is the Great
American Teacher Dead?
Abstract
Around 300 BC,
as night fell on an Athenian street, a dejected-looking man was seen looking in
his head down and sorrow in his eyes. His name was Demosthenes, and he had just
failed it again, in one of his attempts at Public speaking. Satyrus his friend
enunciated the same words in a way that was more powerful and compelling.
Public speaking and teaching are cousins. At the core of both is communication.
The concept that education is more than just exposing people to the facts, but
it also came from the heart it needs teaching that is passionate, positive,
inspiring, inviting, meaningful and transformative, addresses world problems,
shifts paradigms, and attends to fragile self-concepts within its recipients. So,
what is the status of great teaching in the U.S. today? It is difficult to
tell. It will likely remain unresolved for decades, if not centuries.
Views
from the Outside and the Inside coming to America
Italian
anthropologist, E.L. Cerroni-Long (1993), spent time at an American university and
came to the conclusion that American students were not very deeply
intellectually. And also, Italian Anthropologist, Rik Pinxten (1993), who also
studied the U.S university system, implied that he agreed with some American
thinkers at the time who felt that the American intellectual and intellectual
discourse at universities was, for all intents and purposes, dead. She felt that
U.S universities were replete with competitiveness, lack of compassion,
cultural casualties, and psychological insecurity. A Dutch Anthropologists, Rik
Pinxten (1993) He asserted that the American university worlds is not the place
where inspirational, deep and awe-inspiring teaching can flourish. Arum and
Roksa (2011) studied more than 1300 undergraduates at 24 institutions. Their
findings were that 45% of the students studied showed no significant improvement
in complex reasoning, critical thinking, and writing from the time they entered
college to end of their sophomore years.
Closer to
Home
An internationally recognized expert on the human brain, John
Medina (2008) claims that students remember meaning before details (Medina,
2008). This sense of meaningful engagement in a great cause can significantly
contribute to the success potential of any undertaking. It can work many
miracles of the mind, even in extreme circumstances. Revolution as the patients
found life suddenly imbued with a novel sense of meaning and purpose (and
obviously also imbued with unawareness of purpose (and obviously also imbued
with unawareness of the oncoming horror). He encourages educators to return
once more to our youthful, ideological roots. Teachers should be more
entertaining, a little more stimulating, and a little more entertaining, and a little
more inspiring. If one believes he or she is engaged in a great work, one’s comportment
and bearing need to be proportionately reflective.
Purpose
and Paradigms: The Need to Go Deep Metacognition and the Great Teacher
A facet of
metacognition involves the presentation of alternative paradigms to facilitate
the student’s reflection upon his or her own models of reality, possibly
raising him her to new levels of consciousness. He basically says that the
great ones inspire their students with attention-grabbing ideas, testing
general assumptions, tackling captivating problems, and examining the paradigms
that inform social reality.
Mining
the Rich Cross- Cultural Landscape
Speaking of
cultural differences, researchers have discovered a positive correlation
between human achievement and being raised in an environment that is rich in
cultural diversity.
Human
Universals and Great Teaching
Many
universal elements permeate all cultures and leave mark on the emotional and
cognitive fabric of our lives. Knowledge of some these elements can be
instructive in the art of teaching. Researchers discovered that the ratings quantify
good teaching, if we do our best to align ourselves with the principles of
sound instruction such as meaningfulness, metacognition, Transformative
Education, cultural introspection, cross-cultural exploration.
Teachers
on a Mission: Making Things Meaningful
One of the threads
emerging from the above studies seems to be a considerable lack of depth and a
concomitantly severe lack of inspiration. David E. Purple (1989), criticizing
the field of education, has written, “The profession must begin with the
perspective of hunger, war, poverty, or starvation as its starting point, rather
than from the perspective of problems of textbook selection, teacher
certification requirements, or discipline policies. If there is no serious connection
between education and hunger, injustice, alienation, poverty, and war, then we
are wasting our time, deluding each other, and breaking faith”
Transformative
Education
This mode of
learning is replete with deep, personal reflection; reflection that potentially
pushes back the parameters of reality. The authors stated (in a quotation attributed
to Dirkx) that a truly transformative learning experiences is one where “we are
left with the feeling that life will not be as it was before, that this
experience has created a sense that we cannot go back to the way we were before
the experiences”
Cultural
Self-Examination
Every
culture possesses a unique system of requirements for obtaining prestige and
avoiding shame. Sigmund Freud showed how rules for feelings good are built into
the child in each society (Becker, 1973). However, the artificiality and
irrationality of some “cultural rules” often lead to disastrous personal
circumstances. For example, schizophrenia, which is definitely associated with
chemical imbalances, subsides more rapidly in some cultures rather connections
and the mental models they constitute will then be at the student’s permanent
disposal to assist in future acts cognition (Ivers et al., 2008).
The
Scientists and Psychologists Get Involved Brain Research
Research on
the human brain has found that continuing to engage the mind can assist in keeping
it healthy similar to the way physical activity keeps the body healthy (Kennedy
& Reese, 2007) Research shows that memory is augmented if an event is
reviewed immediately after it happens (Medina, 2008). Occasional group work in
class may also be a way to bring about the variety necessary as required by the
“Ten Minute Rule.”
Brain
Research and Invitational Education Come Together
All facets
of teacher-student interactions with students should never escape personal
scrutiny. As, a teacher, it would no hurt to occasionally reflect upon one’s
preconceptions. It is essential to keep student’s dignity and fragile self-concept
always on one’s radar for a multiple of reasons. Classroom subcultures need to
be developed that are rigorous, yet at the same time have the tendency to
enhance one’s self-actualization rather than detract from it.
What It
might Be
The
Dynamic of Delivery
Medina says,
“We don’t pay attention to boring things” Besides the examples, the stories the
Ten-Minute Rule, and the group reviewing, as teachers, it behooves us to work
on our deliveries. From all research showed that instructor enthusiasm
accounted for almost 40% of the variation in student responses concerning
whether or not the class afforded them new skills or knowledge. From all the research, teaching to be a
science, it is also an art form.
A Feeble
Try
There has
obviously been a lot of research on good teaching. Even though it is difficult
to quantify, some common threads can be found throughout the research. The following
assumes adequate lesson planning and instructor competence in the subject
matter.
1. Positive teacher-student relationship
2. A good “delivery”
3. Edifies rather than damages a student’s
self-concept
4. Clarify (through the use of many
examples and stories)
5. Encourage deep and critical thinking
6. Variety instead monotony (do not
forget the Ten-Minute Rule)
7. Grading and workload is generally
perceived to be fair
8. Enthusiasm and zest for the topic
9. Meaningful to real world problems
10. Potentially transforms one’s world
view from one of uncritical acceptance of cultural dictates to one of deep,
reflective, and compassionate thinking.
Conclusion
According to my research in order to one wants to complete the mission,
the first order of business is to take care of the troops. If we take care of
our students, our mission of educating them will be greatly facilitated. May we
never be perfectly research, Invitational Education, and human universals, we
will, at least, be doing our best to take care of our students as they march
off to engages the many hostilities and challenges of life.
