What is teaching, after all?
I recently got an e-mail where a parent informed me that her daughter (in World Civ Honors) feels like she has to teach herself history. Part of me thought, "Are you saying that I haven't been teaching for the past four weeks?!?" Another part of me thought, "That is what I am trying to accomplish." My job is not so much to teach students history as it is to teach students how to learn history. If a student feels that my job is to feed her information, she might occasionally be disappointed, but if a student reacts positively to my approach, she will learn much more this way.
posted by Roger Hess at 1:34 PM
1 Comments:
So . . . the student is doing so much work that she hasn't had the time to come talk to you herself? Please! We're trying to teach them (amongst many other lessons) that they need to self-advocate! How can they learn to seek assistance when their parents communicate with us instead of telling their kids to come talk to us? This is the entire point of the variable schedule, right? I had a junior tell me that he lacked the time to come get assistance from me. Right. His five unscheduled hours per week are BOOKED with homework and meetings with other teachers. Wow. When do they even have time to breathe??? Now, I realize that this does not apply to all students, but many view their unscheduled hours as "free" periods, not opportunities to get the things done that their otherwise admittedly hectic lives do not allow.
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