ARE YOU A BAD TEACHER? Read this post from the Washington Post and then reflect or add your comments. I look forward to hearing what you have to say. Plus, investigate the blog Gatsby in L.A. for interesting commentary by a former educator.
Monday, January 19, 2015
Are you a 'bad teacher'
January is always a good time to begin reflecting about how effective you are as an educator and whether you need to leave the classroom or at the very least make some changes. It is that time of year when administrators begin to assemble your evaluation even though they may or may not have been in your classroom. At the end of the process do you feel validated, are there real items of suggested areas for improvement?
ARE YOU A BAD TEACHER? Read this post from the Washington Post and then reflect or add your comments. I look forward to hearing what you have to say. Plus, investigate the blog Gatsby in L.A. for interesting commentary by a former educator.
ARE YOU A BAD TEACHER? Read this post from the Washington Post and then reflect or add your comments. I look forward to hearing what you have to say. Plus, investigate the blog Gatsby in L.A. for interesting commentary by a former educator.
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It seems like all I do is work. Even when I am not working, when I am out and about in my 'home' life, I see things that make me think about how I can use this or that in the classroom to inspire students to learn or to illustrate a point of discussion for the topic that we are studying. I tell myself that I am involved and this is what good teachers do, but am I a good teacher. Do I self reflect? Do I evaluate my interactions with my students? Do I apologize when I have created a lesson that bombs or created situations that lead others to behave badly, or react in a way that is not helpful to situations in the classroom? Do I ask for help when I need it? Do I read about what others are doing in the classroom or do I offer suggestions to other educators and engage in the conversations about education? Do I create lessons and get feedback from my peers? Do I share my ideas and lessons with others? Do I really care about the students, and how we educate them and ourselves? Do I effect change or do I just complain? Do I care about what my administrator says or do I just get mad and blow it off? Do I look for feedback from others I trust and admire and do I help in return when asked? Do I remember that there are more good days than bad days in my classroom? Do I focus on the learning of the day or the disruptions to the learning? Am I hyper focused on the students who act out or do I also try to engage the quiet students in the classroom? Do I try to figure out how to reach all of the students or just the low ones? The high ones? The ones in the middle? What are my priorities as an educator? Is it about me, the standards, the students, the parents, the law, or all of these? Which ones can I ignore and note be a bad teacher?
ReplyDeleteUpon reflection, I am a fantastic, terrific, gifted, superior teacher. I should train others. I am the teacher every student needs to encounter. You may not think I care because I hold you to your highest potential and you don't want to work that hard. You think I am yelling when I ask you to work and think for yourself but in reality you are 12 or 13 and everybody is yelling at you when you don't like what they are saying. I think you are smart and gifted even when you don't. I see you and the future that I know you can have. I can't wait to meet you again in ten years to see what you have accomplished. You frustrate me and make me extremely happy to enter the classroom day after day and year after year. I am afraid that even when I leave the classroom for good upon retirement that I will always be trying to figure out a way to bring what I see back to the classroom to share with you how to see and interact with the world around you. I am as passionate about being a teacher as I am about being a parent, a wife, a daughter, and being me.
My hope is that teachers like me inspire others to be teachers. It is teachers like me that need to run schools to teach other teachers to be educators. Great teachers happen by accident because schools of education are not filled with great teachers and administrator forgot what it was like to be a great teacher. Great teachers do not make the rules and pass the laws about the needs of our students. Terrific teachers muddle on in the classroom doing what they always do, putting students first, ahead of tests and in spite of rules made by people that have no idea what is really happening in the classroom across America.
I thank the teachers that I had, even though they may not remember that I was there and I wish I could go and thank personally the ones that I irritated. I am lucky in that many of the students that I have had through the years have come back and shared with me the impact that I have had on their lives. It validates me (even though I should not need it).
To finish up my ramble. I am not a bad teacher.