I would be lying if I said I always wanted to be a teacher. In fact my first occupational goal was to be a zoo keeper, but of course when you are 5 you don’t realize that the job does not just involve playing with animals. I have changed what I wanted to be my whole life from Pro-surfer to Actress to more realistic things like lawyer, or an architect, to deciding between nursing and education, and then finding a happy medium- Speech Pathology. I chose Speech pathology because I like teaching and I am also interested in Medicine. Speech Pathology allows me to have the option of working in a school or hospital. My tutoring experience at Bobby Smith School has helped me find that Speech Pathology is what I wanted to do. Mostly because I found that I like working with small groups of children versus a classroom and I like working with children who have a harder time in school than others. Although I will not be having a large class of my own, I will be working one on one with students, and this experience has helped create a mold of the kind of teacher I would like to be.
There are some things at the school I tutor at that I think work well and there are also some things I think do not work well at all. In my class I have noticed that one of my teacher’s favorite discipline techniques is “shushing”. Although I can understand that a teacher could be tired at the end of the day after having to deal with 20 students who are constantly misbehaving, I do not think just telling them to “shush”, will help solve the behavior issue. If a child is constantly misbehaving, than that child is usually having a problem, whether it is something at home or something at school. To eliminate this problem I think the teacher should pull the child aside and ask if something is bothering him/her and explain to him/her why the behavior they are exhibiting is considered unacceptable. The entire school is very big on discipline, and although that is understandable, I think the manner of how it is dealt with is a little unnecessary. Yelling is particularly a favorite technique of most of the teachers, which frightens both the students, visitors and even some of the faculty. I work at another school for my work study, and I have never heard a teacher yell and as a result the children participate more in the classroom and also respect their teachers more.
On the other hand I do like how they bring in volunteers like us to help kids who are struggling with school. Having college students come in and teach children how to read better is positive in many ways. Firstly younger children admire older children, if they work with college students and those students emphasis how much fun and how important college is, than the younger students are more likely to set a goal of going to college. Secondly, they are getting the one on one time they are not getting in the classroom, which helps identify the problem they are having earlier and getting it resolved sooner as well. I was shocked to learn from a fellow volunteer who did a project on an 8th grade class in Providence her senior year, that a lot of 8th graders in Providence are reading at a 3rd grade level. Volunteers can help resolve this problem by the one on one time they spend with their students. If I was to have a classroom of my own I would definitely welcome college volunteers into my classroom.
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Communication is a very important factor in teaching. Its the most used method for teachers and their students to interact. Because communication between a teacher and students is so important within the classroom, it should be done correctly. Within your post you mentioned how the teacher of your classroom favors the "shushing" method. This way of telling the children to be quiet is completely ineffective in my opinion. If you do not tell the student why he/she needs to be quiet or give another type of direction, they are unaware of what they need to do/what they need to work on. I agree with you that a good solution to a student who is misbehaving is for the teacher to pull aside the student and discuss with them what they are doing wrong and how they can solve this problem. This is a perfect example of how communication between a teacher and a student should be done. This way the teacher can discuss with the student the problems going on and the student can take into consideration of the teacher's wishes. On the other hand, if the teacher chooses to ignore the issue and "shushes" the student, the problem can never be resolved. Discussing issues between teachers and students is a great way for teachers to connect with their students and is a method more teachers should use in their classroom.
ReplyDeleteThe second part of your post I also highly agree with. Bringing kids from college to help tutor and work with these struggling students is a great thing for both the college student as well as the child being tutored. Tutoring these kids in need gives the children special attention that they need in order to succeed. Through observation within my own classroom, I've noticed a lot of the students don't get individual attention from the teacher. This of course is not all of the teacher's fault, it can be hard giving each student a lot of attention when you are teaching a vast class. That is why I agree that the college students coming in and helping a couple of students each is a really good opportunity for the students to connect and also give those children the attention they may need to have a more effective educational experience.