The Cause and effects of a bad Educator
“The difference between good teachers and great teachers is good teachers are capable of putting what is suppose to be learned into the student’s mind, great teachers are capable of bringing out that which is supposed to be learned from the student’s mind.“
-- Paul Skeffington
In looking at proper techniques on teaching and learning, some teachers focus on increasing the self esteem of students displaying less ability to comprehend or participate. In doing so, they ignore, demotivate and even discriminate against some of their brightest, most active and most motivated students.
The mediocre teacher tells. The good teacher explains. The superior teacher demonstrates. The great teacher inspires.
-- William Arthur Ward
These teachers lower their ‘A’ students grades and inflate their ‘D’ level student’s grades; they systematically give a greater deal of credit to these ‘D’ students for, at most, mediocre if not incompetent skills, not even in the same realm of the abilities of their ‘A’ students. ‘A’ student’s papers, presentations and tests are graded more strictly and teachers change grading and rules of participation to accommodate the weaker students abilities effectively forcing the ‘A’ students down to the level of their colleagues. Some teachers even go much further that these apparent violations such as teaching content that only the weaker students will understand whether by language or by splitting the classrooms into separate groups and then providing vital information to one group and not the other, so as to stack the deck for tests and grading in an unequal, discriminatory manner.
'Teachers who do a bad job with old tools are likely to do a worse job with strange new tools.'
-- Anon Educator
What I find so ironic about the draconian attitudes of these teachers are that most of them feel they are ‘fair’ and justified in their feeling that they are teachers to be admired by creating an equal playing field no matter how artificial. They honestly feel they are doing a good thing by discriminating against the more advantaged, more privileged, higher caliber ‘A’ students.
'If we always do what we've always done, we will get what we've always got.'
-- Adam Urbanski
These teachers loose the respect of both groups of students. These teachers efforts to motivate the weaker students in fact teaches or emphasizes that the weaker student can continue to sit in class as a mindless, inanimate object who talks amongst themselves, disrupt the class and teacher, lacks any perception of an attention span, neglect to participate or study, is exempt from doing course required exercises and cheat on exams. In effect, these very teachers who try to elevate the self-esteem of the weaker student is saying to the weaker student, “You are not as good as them, you need to be treated unequally because you are inferior, you do not belong in that group.” The attitudes these students have from this class are brought over to other classes where they will not benefit. In fact, these students will probably have a more difficult time in other classes and the possibility of being prejudiced against becomes a serious issue that will need to be dealt with at a higher level. “I can even not go to class, not participate, not study, not do my work, disrupt the class, show a general lack of common courtesy, cheat and I will still get an ‘A’ on my exam” is indicative of the attitudes of these students.
'To be a teacher you must be a prophet - because you are trying to prepare people for a world thirty to fifty years into the future.'
-- Gordon Brown MIT
In addition, ‘A’ students loose the moral fortitude to perform or to continue to perform at the level they have been performing. They do not respect the teacher or the weaker attention-soaked students. They tend to withdraw from the class, loose motivation towards learning, become pidgin pegged into the mold the teacher has manufactured in order to attain the academically institutionalized lower ‘A’ standard of the course. These students become rebellious and tend to descend into a lower ethical class of student. They consider cheating, disrupting the class, withdrawing from participation, reducing their studies of that particular subject or receive lower grades. In eradicating one group or type of student’s characteristics, a modification of the other type of student’s characteristics attains the very characteristics that the teacher is trying to rectify.
'Some folks are wise, some are otherwise'.
-- Tobies George Smollett
There are reasons why some students perform well and others, even if capable, do not, as well the same can be said about our teachers. We are not equal, we have not had the same life experiences and even if we did we would not always get the same knowledge from these same experiences. This is because we are all imbued with a different intellect, a different level of which we learn, a different cognitive ability to see or to not see, a different view point of what or why something is or has happened. Moreover, we all have different reasons to be, different influences on our lives and different levels of motivation. Even by ‘stacking the deck’ in favor of weaker students you will not be guaranteed a stronger student, quite the opposite. The student will not be inspired as there is no example in either the students around them or the teacher. These teachers will have to actually change grades of most of the weaker students to make them appear to have an understanding of the course content.
'Until recently, education has had it backwards, caring little for the teacher... and enormously about the content. Yet it is a gifted teacher who can infect a generation with the excitement of learning.'
-- Aquarian Conspiracy
When teachers affect the opposite of inspiring their students, it is our responsibility as a student, a fellow teacher, an administrator, a parent and a member of society to not only quash this poisonous canker infecting the minds of our educational system and society but to fight it with a vengeance with all our vigor and resources no matter what the cost. It is also our responsibility to affect this educator, to inspire this educator to become what they, too, can become, a pillar of the educational system and our society. How we do this is the preeminent problem faced today in the educational system.
Quote this article on your site
To create link towards this article on your website,
copy and paste the text below in your page.Preview :
|
