Elle Feig's blog
Title: A World of Good Teachers
Take a moment to review the Aspects of Good Teaching. Then, think of how you would help less experienced teachers implement them in their classrooms. What kinds of activities would you suggest? Which one of these aspects would be most challenging to implement by teachers in your country or region? Why? What can be done to change this?
One of the biggest issues that I see when I observe other teachers is that their primary focus is on their own needs, rather than the needs of their students. These teachers enter the classroom with defined ideas that come from their own education or experience and refuse to consider that their students should be the focus. One colleague of mine teaches simply so he can write; he makes students read his work, makes students spit out his ideas and refuses to engage in any conversation that moves off his path. Students vehemently complain about him and he has some of the worst ratings on the infamous Rate My Professor site. Although he does "show, versus tell" by using his own published work, he does not acknowledge that there are numerous authors that students should read in order to become educated. The classroom has become his kingdom where all who enter are simply serfs.
In order to implement aspects of good teaching, a new teacher must empty their mind of all of their bias, prejudice and sense of grandeur; they must recognize that we, as a community in this world, learn best when we are open to the opinion and teachings of others, when we ask questions and probe. Spend the first week learning about your students by asking them who they are? where they have been? where they want to be? Ask them what they see when they look in the mirror and share with them what you see when you look in your own mirror. Don't obsess about the test or the state standards until you have a sense of the ability and interests of your students. If you have a student who learns visually, have some lesson plans that use multimedia, music, video games. If you have a student who learns orally, have verbal games and readings. If you have a student who is shy, don't force class presentations. Sometimes you need to stand back and allow your students to have a measure of control. Last year I had a developmental English class that was totally out of control; they simply refuse to follow the lesson plans I had created. By the third class, I decided to change everything and walked in with the attitude that I was going to go hog wild. I started to play acting games with them, forcing them to write and perform small scenes. I brought in reality television shows like Jersey Shore (I teach in New Jersey) and made them break down the characters and dialogue. We played board games where they had to create sentences out of words I gave them and then prove to the class that the sentences worked. By the end of the semester, they begged me not to end class and when they took the final mastery exit exam they all passed with flying colors. Sometimes we need to recognize that all our education does not necessarily make us teachers but rather it is our ability to go with the flow, to allow our students to have a voice and to recognize that we don't always know everything.
Eliana,
I wish that we could figure out how to actually engage our colleagues and help them to open their minds to new methodology. I keep coming across walls all around me and the frustration mounts. Just this week I worked on a curriculum focused on child soldiers and the issue of abduction; I disseminated it to my colleagues and offered a list of potential speakers for a forum. With the exceptionof a few open minds, all of the rest of the faculty said they couldn't move off their set curriculum. This frustrates me to no end as there are exceptional books on this matter (Ishmael Beah) and students could really learn a great deal. We need to recognize that as educators we will always be student and put ourselves in the seat of our students.
What do you think?
Ellen
Thank you Ellen for talking about your personal experience. It is an experience I had, too when teaching German in a middle school. I started my assignment due to pregnancy of a colleague in January, so after the first term of school. I was aware and conscious that the students were used to my colleague and that maybe our methods would deffer. So I tried to find out about the students and posed them the questions that seemed to be relevant to me to get introspection into their lifes, wishes, needs, abilities, social backgrounds. But they seemed to always complain about everything I was proposing. So we decided to have an open talking session in which they had the chance to exercise constructive criticism towards what they thought was lacking in my lessons. They expressed how they experienced my work and I listened to them and answered their questions. It was really interesting. And after that clarifying speech, on which I got the chance to reflect about myself and my teaching methods, we worked together well and they were really sad when the year was over and I had to leave.
The suggestions and advice you stated for less experienced teachers are great and I agree with you. The only thing I was wondering about and asking myself:
How can we motivate teachers who are less experienced to empty their minds from bias, prejudices and sense of grandeur?
Do you have any practical suggestions for it? I would really appreciate that because the picture of teachers you portrayed is rather widespread in my country and environment, too.
Namaste
Eliana
I know what you are talking about. As teachers who try to adapt our curriculum and activities to our students we most of the time stand there alone and encounter many walls.
Tradtional teachers think they possess a preferential status and don't want to give it up. They think, if they modify their curriculum or lesson plan, they loose credibility towards students. It is a hard task to perform. I discovered that we can propose and outline our ideas to our colleagues but we can not change their minds if they don't want to or are not ready for it. But I know how frustrating it is because I experienced it myself, too. I felt and was excluded and seen as "crazy" or "incompetent" because I introduced more creative methods to motivate my students.
But I realized that some colleagues jumped into our "school journal" project after it had already started because they saw with what passion and enthusiasm the students talked about it and engaged in it. I think processes of change take time to be assimilated and understood. Many teachers look at the projects with suspicion because they are so different from their own concepts and they are scared to leave their comfort zone. They might watch the development of other teachers' projects from the border line and maybe put only one foot into it to see how it feels. Changes happen only with a lot of patience and on a step-by-step basis. But it is frustrating.
I think your project would really be interesting and useful for the students and they could learn a lot about it. It is a topic that can be approached in many different ways and offers chances to do follow-up activities even after the project is over. It provides teachers and students with many inputs for discussion and reflection. The topic could be of interest either for sociology, geography, mediation and peace studies and approaches, history, civic and political education, law, human rights and many more. So it is a pity that only little colleagues recognize the value of it for their curriculum.
Maybe if you ask them what their teaching program is like and what topics they would like to treat, you could introduce a connection to the project you are proposing and outlining some opportunities to collaborate and to connect to the studying area. This could make teachers see some different approaches. The challenge is maybe for you to get too enthusisastic about the project and scare them off. It is rather difficult to keep the balance and find the necessary middle way.
Another opportunity would be to invite them to join the project and simply have a look at it and make themselves an idea of it. The only objection that could be found is full working schedule and little time to participate.
Please let me know what you think about it and how your project is going on. It sounds very interesting and I would like to know more about how you intend to structure the whole project.
It is really inspiring reading your blog entries and I am looking forward to read more from you and learn from you.
Have a happy and peaceful weekend
Eliana