Making Mistakes: Humility v. Confidence

While teaching, many teachers make mistakes. However, as a teacher, one should be confident as well. When a teacher makes a mistake, where does he or she draw the line between confidence and humility? When a teacher makes a mistake, he or she needs to be honest with their students. However one should not teach something confidently if he or she is unsure about their content. To prevent this situation from occurring, a teacher can be better prepared in his or her content area. Regardless, a teacher will make a mistake. If the mistake is regarding content, the teacher should admit his or her mistake to their students. The teacher should follow up and provide their students with correct content as soon as possible. To an extent this situation presents humility, because the teacher does not care how they are viewed. They truly care about the content and information the students learn. They want to be sure that what they teach is accurate.

Colaborativeness

A highly effective team means that each individual within the group must have the same goal. It’s important to have the same goal in order to have cohesive interest in the group and their activities. For example, in a high school setting, if 3 out 4 people in a string quartet participated because they really wanted to make beautiful music and 1 person was involved in the group because he/she was told to do so by their parents, the group goal is not the same. The goal of the 3 would be to enjoy and make beautiful music, meaning they are more likely to care and practice the music. However the 1 out of the 4 might have a goal to do whatever their parents say to satisfy them. This one person is less likely to practice their music and care about the ensemble as a whole. This one person can throw off the effectiveness of the entire ensemble. Also a highly effective team needs to be well organized. Meaning, that work among the group, work is equally divided. Every person should have his or her specific role within the group in order to achieve the big picture. Colaborativeness is not exactly like cooperative learning. In cooperative learning the students learn more effectively when they teach and help each other. Yet collaboration is different because students need to pull their own weight. With cooperative learning there is a different sense of responsibility. For example if a student taught another student how to correctly speak a rhythm. The learning on behalf of the student’s “student” can be affected by the student’s content knowledge, attitude or teaching style. Therefore if the “student” learns something wrong, it is not the responsibility of the “student.”

Efficacy: Components Needed to be a Teacher

As a population, we are all very different. We have different attributes that set one person apart from another. For example, one person may be naturally quirky or naturally funny. As teachers, these different attributes contribute to beliefs and teaching styles. However, no matter the personality, good teachers need to have self-awareness, confidence, persistence, and a good work ethic.
Self awareness is especially applicable to new teachers, as well as old teachers. New teachers constantly need to test their knowledge and skills. For example, a new teacher might try different teaching styles and monitor themselves based on their result. Also a new teacher as well old teachers need to monitor what he or she says and how they say it. For example if music teacher wants their music student to crescendo one wouldn't say "can you crescendo for me?" Instead, the teacher might ask the student "what do you need to do in this measure?" The first question is not really a question. Whereas, the second question leads the student to solve the problem for themselves. Speech and language are vital to teaching therefore it is important that a teacher be clear with their students.
Teachers need to be confident as well as clear when he or she talks to their student. If a teacher were to teach something without confidence, the students will not feel confident either. It's the job of the teacher to know what to do when students can't learn things by themselves. Also if a teacher is not confident, the students may feel that the teacher doesn't know the subject area very well. The teacher needs to have confidence in order to keep control and manage their classroom.
One can develop a great amount of knowledge with a good work ethic. A good work ethic can be defined as a belief to work efficiently and effectively. This idea can be applied to a teacher too. For example, an orchestra teacher (conductor) needs to search for problems while the students play. Then, the orchestra would need to address the problem to the students and clearly and effectively state how to fix the student's problem. The teacher needs to have knowledge in their subject area, so they can observe and fix the student's problem. Without great knowledge of a subject area, a teacher would not know what to do. Therefore, the students would not learn much of anything. Also a teacher needs to be persistent. For example, when students do not understand, think of another technique that could help them. A teacher cannot simply give up when their student does not understand something. Otherwise conveys that the teacher sets low standards for themsleves and their students.
One can develop all these skills through experience. Not many people can say they're first year of teaching was easy. One constantly needs to work and improve themselves so he or she can be the best teacher possible for his or her students.

Creativity: Response to Ken Robinson

Creativity can be taught to a certain limit. For example a teacher can give his or her own personal example of what is and is not creative. It is the role of teachers to evaluate and encourage students’ creativeness. In order to so, a teacher directs the student to certain paths that helps a student to develop ideas. Yet, the teacher cannot create their student’s ideas for them. Students have to be solely responsible for their creativeness. There is not simply one right answer in the area of creativity. In most situations, creativeness has an endless slew of answers one can develop. A teacher cannot teach creativeness in the same respect as a teacher would teach math, science or English.

Further, Ken Robinson said that he feels that creativity is as important as literature. I agree with his comparison. However, creativity is not on the same level as literature, music, math or any other school subject. Creativity is a tool that both students use to embellish. For example, one can use it to compose songs or write poems.

Moreover, creativity is vital to the 21st century. Creativity is something one uses in an attempt to improve and enrich his or her surroundings. These impacts can be extremely large or tiny. They can range from the creation of a novel to a short story written by a young child. There’s nothing wrong with the attempt to improve one’s life.

My Thoughts on Playing Roles for "No Child Left Behind" (8/5/09)

I personally thought the idea of role playing was a fun way for our class to interact with each other. It was fun to see the different attitudes and enthusiasm of other classmates. For example, when neither of professors let select groups speak. When this happened a sort of fun sense of frustration built up within the groups and certain people felt obligated to interrupt and contradict the professors.
I enjoyed the role play and I feel that the teaching technique used was more efficient. The other option to teach the topic would have consisted of a tradtional classroom setting, in which the teacher would simply lecture the class. Then the students would most likely have a quiz, in which they would memorize and regurgitate information. Because of role playing, I feel like I am more likely to remember the different viewpoints of "No Child Left Behind"in the future.

Passion

Personally, I'm not the best at math and I do not I really like it.
However, for a short while I had an excellent math teacher. Because I had him, math was more interesting and fun.

He added his own personality and spin to math. He was able to able to make a personal connection to students. This allowed the class to be more than just numbers and equations. He was funny and always encouraged everyone to succeed on their own level. Students in my class were not all at the same skill level. I noticed how he loved to see a student's personal progress. His enthusiasm for other's growth of knowledge is what interested me in math.

Authenticity: Knowing One's Limits

Authenticity means that one should be true to theirself. A teacher can better themselves from being authentic. One can teach as best they can with the knowledge he or she has. A teacher should never pretend to teach something that they do not know about. Otherwise, students could be misguided by incorrect information and cannot develop and grow. Therefore, the students really never learn anything properly.

For example I know a friend who had a private string teacher for lessons from my hometown. She always remained true to herself in her teaching. My friend was told by her teacher that she should move on to a new teacher to help her develop her playing. The teacher watched out for the well-being and development of the student. She knew she could no longer teach her student based on her teaching skills. Not that the teacher is not good, or to say that the student had surpassed the teacher's knowledge. But merely that the teacher felt she no longer fit the skill level of the student. A good teacher is one who truly knows their limits. In my friend's case,the teacher did not think of herself, but rather understood her student's need and passion to know more.

Compassion within Teachers

Compassion equals the love one shares for something. In teaching, I think it's important that the teacher have compassion for what they're teaching, as well as who they're are teaching to.

My own personal example of this kind of teacher is my youth symphony director. She has a wealth of knowledge about music and what it means to work as an ensemble. She always approached each member of the symphony as an individual. For example, every year she would would always send out holiday cards in december to every member of the symphony.

She was as passionate about music as she was her students. She gave us all the idea of creating art with the music. The way she taught us allowed us to share the art with the audience members.

When compassion for teaching, the subject matter, and for the students are combined, this can create an ideal teacher.

Respect in the Classroom

I define respect as the appreciation and understanding of others. The same idea applies to the classroom. The students should appreciate that the teachers try to allow students to understand and learn whatever topic it is that he or she covers. On the flip side, teachers need to know that some students will not initially understand what he or she teaches.



If a student tells a teacher that their certain subject or class is stupid. This exemplifies that the students do not appreciate the teacher. The teacher hopefully has good intentions to explain the subject or topic so that each individual student can understand. However, when a student asks a legitimate question respectfully, the teacher should never reply in a sarcastic or rude manner. In this situation, the teacher does not understand that the student has good intentions to learn the subject or topic. The environment is skewed. If a teacher were to act in negative or saracastic way, there is a high chance that the students will focus more on the teacher and less on the subject they are learning. Thus the entire purpose of the teacher and the students both lose their purpose.



Respect is best established among the teacher and the students when there is a positive, mutual understanding and appreciation of each persons' role in the classroom.