I thought this chapter of the text combined every topic we have learned previously, and showed how to apply what we have learned. One topic that I see reoccurring in every section of this book is that education is beyond the classroom. Events that occur everyday drive students’ education; such has culture, sex, and economic status. It is the job of the teacher to bring them together. Gollnick and Chinn bring up some very good points about incorporating the culture of students in the classroom. They bring up the major points that all teachers should follow to have success in the classroom (pg 378). We as teachers strive to have the perfect classroom and follow these five points, but sometimes its just unrealistic to accomplish with every student. We know that all students are capable of learning if we find the right way to interact and teach them. The real question is how do we teach 30 different kids in the best possible way? Is it possible? Is each kid going to grasp the necessary knowledge is the different ways it is presented? I believe that it is possible for all kids to learn in the classroom, and how we accomplish that task is that teachers must first continue to learn. Teachers need to constantly learn new ways to teach and interact with the kids. Some teachers have been doing the same lesson for 25 years. The kids change over time and teachers need to as well. Education will not get better if teachers will not learn new ways to instruct and how to spark interest in the kids.
How can we change education in northeast Ohio. The government seems to think that money will solve all problems. If we give more funding to schools, everything will improve. I only partially agree with that. I think the money needs to be spent more wisely. For example I think buying technology for schools is great, but guess what half the teachers don’t know how to use it. I doubt that all teachers sit down and try to learn the new technology when the school buys it. I understand that there are much smarter people than I am creating ideas on how to improve education. Personally I think education will improve greatly if teachers continually learn and study their trade. I always interview my classes on the first day, and they get to interview me as well. One questions always comes up. Why did you become a teacher? My response is because I learn something new everyday. They will learn from me and I will learn from them. I try to make it comfortable for them in the room. I tell them its not embarrassing to make mistakes. I’m not the smarter person in the world and I will make mistakes, but I wont make the same mistake twice. Learning new information is a powerful and to get the students to understand that is the challenge we face everyday.
2 comments:
You asked, Is it possible to teach 30 different kids in the best possible way? I would say no if you are talking about only one way. We need to make sure that we teach the content in many different ways to reach all types of learners. The same is true with culture. Unless every student in your class has the same exact background you are going to need to be ware of what different ways work to reach each student, which can be hard with over 100 students.
I agree that technology is not always the answer to all problems relating to education. As the book mentioned in chapter 10, we need to understand our cultural identity in order to start moving forward in creating a multi-cultural classroom. There is so much more to teaching then technology, and I feel that being caring, understanding, and aware of situational circumstances proves to be a positive in the educational system.
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