Saturday, September 10, 2011

Project 3: C4T #1

In my first C4T assignment, I read a post by John T. Spencer, a middle school teacher in Arizona, entitled "The Paradox of Parenting". Mr. Spencer has two major points in this post: many truths are actually paradoxical, and nobody knows it all.

He gives a fairly long list of paradoxical truths, such as "Stay safe but stay free" - all of which are assumed as true but seem contradictory. He speaks on the fact that all of these are true, but simply seem like they contradict themselves. Furthermore, Mr. Spencer makes it clear that when it comes to how to teach (and parent), nobody knows it all, no matter what they claim.

In my comment, I agreed with his points, stating that as educators, we cannot take a "my way or the highway" approach - each student learns differently, and we have to adapt to each student in order to teach them best.

For my second week with Mr. Spencer, I read the post "That's Not a Reading Strategy". He opens with an anecdote about how he hated reading about the founding fathers as a child - he found them boring and didn't relate to them. All that he could relate to were actual letters that they wrote, which actually gave them a sense of humanity, as did a book he found later, entitled Founding Brothers. This book allowed Mr. Spencer a more personal, human approach to the founding fathers, and made him think about and enjoy reading them more.

After sharing this, he shares a story about teachers in the lounge discussing whether or not they should teach personal connections as a reading strategy. "Will it be on the standardized tests?" they wonder. The two teachers actually come to the conclusion that they cannot teach personal connections because they do not have time because they will not be tested. Talk about teaching to the test!

I agree completely with Mr. Spencer that this is an absolutely deplorable approach. I could go on a tangent about the fact that teachers should not be put into the position of having so much based on test scores that they no longer have time to actually teach, but I shall not. As Mr. Spencer says, children will never continue to read and learn freely if we don't help them enjoy it and have a personal connection with it! Our job as educators is to help students learn and help them develop a passion for lifelong learning, not to simply teach them to recite random, unrelated, and often unimportant facts!

1 comment:

  1. I agree with you and Mr. Spencer, that many truths seem paradoxical. But I think some of the statements he listed are not so much contradictory; they go hand-in-hand, such as teaching a child to be independent but also interdependent. I also agree that no expert, parent, teacher or any other professional knows it all. Even when teaching methods have been tested and proven successful, not every child will learn by that particular approach, so educators should always be prepared with multiple techniques and teaching styles.

    About your second summary, again I agree with you and Mr. Spencer. Children aren't taught how to learn anymore, only how to pass tests, it seems. I understand the economic restraints and even school system politics, but our students are being deprived of making personal connections. This is where parents need to step in. It is our job as parents to instill in our children empathy for others so they will automatically put themselves in the place of our forefathers, or authors of other books, of their own teachers, friends and fellow classmates.

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