May 8, 2012
The importance of the teacher in national life cannot be over emphasized. It is he, who influences the immature minds of the youth. He treats and tries to mould living stuff into various forms. The future of the nation is fashioned by him through the process of education. A nation trying to march ahead on life road to progress can leave the education of her sons and daughters in the hands of incompetent teachers only at its own risk. “The world of tomorrow will be born from the schools of today” says M.L. Jacks. In this way, teacher, indeed, is the true builder of the nation.
In the past, teacher was held by all in the highest esteem. Even kings and emperors used to look up to them for guidance and advice in hours of crisis. As a matter of fact, teachers were the trustees of common welfare. Teachers in those days were the true benefactors of society. History is full of examples which clearly show that great decisions of vital importance to the whole nation were taken on the directions of the teachers. Such was the importance which was enjoyed by teachers in the past.
Times have now undergone a tremendous change. Teachers have lost their old glory. They are now looked down upon in society. Their economic condition is simply miserable. Even the Government peons are better off than the primary, junior, and even High School teachers. We all know that economically our country is backward and the standard of living of the masses is low. In a country of such low standards, the teacher stands at the lowest rung of the ladder.
Besides this, we live in a materialistic world. Only those command respect and position in society who have enough money. The teacher, being poor, does not enjoy any prestige in society. He suffers in many other ways also. It has become a common feeling with the people that one, who fails everywhere else and has been rejected at all other places, becomes a teacher as a last resort. In this way also teaching profession has been downgraded, their services are considered non-essential and thus they do not get necessary recognition from society.
There is great dissatisfaction and frustration among them. Working conditions in schools and colleges are appalling. It is indeed very sad that such persons are in charge of education as are themselves quite ignorant. They often treat teachers as their domestic servants. Teachers remain helpless in getting such shocking conditions improved.
Education is a complicated process. Not only the teacher, but so many other agencies also take part in educating the young. We are all aware of the influence of the cinema on the minds of children. How quickly they imitate the ways of dressing, walking and talking of their favorite stars is a matter of common experience. The television has also become quite popular. This too has its influence on children. Various other public activities like elections and meetings of political parties also serve as agencies of education. Obviously, the teacher in the present times is not the sole agency of education. Rather, he has a very limited influence.
Today, education is increasingly being regarded as the major weapon in the crusade for supremacy on the economic front. Television, telephone and computers are reshaping practically every walk of life, including education. The classrooms of tomorrow could be entirely different from those of today. The teachers will play a very different role. It would not only be complex but also full of challenges, because dependence on the teacher will gradually diminish for an individual learner. The television, telephone and computer will take over and encourage self learning. Distance education may reduce the need to devote much time within the four walls of the classroom. New techniques of assessment will be available to the learners of each category and stage in their own homes and this realistic assessment would also provide an opportunity for self-directed improvement by the learner, which is rare in the existing system.
However, the situation is not so depressing for a teacher. The importance of the role of the teacher as an agent of change, promoting understanding and tolerance has become more obvious and is likely to become even more critical in the 21st century. This places enormous responsibilities on teachers who participate in the molding of the character and minds of the new generation.
April 12, 2012
1. You gave me strength.
2. I was glad you were my teacher (or child’s teacher).
3. Thank you for giving me courage.
4. You made me a better person.
5. I’ll never forget you.
6. You gave me confidence in myself. (or my son or daughter)
7. Thank you for your patience.
8. You helped me see what I could be.
9. You are the best teacher ever!
April 3, 2012
1. Sense of Humor
A sense of humor can help you become a successful teacher. Your sense of humor can relieve tense classroom situations before they become disruptions. A sense of humor will also make class more enjoyable for your students and possibly make students look forward to attending and paying attention. Most importantly, a sense of humor will allow you to see the joy in life and make you a happier person as you progress through this sometimes stressful career.
2. A Positive Attitutude
A positive attitude is a great asset in life. You will be thrown many curve balls in life and especially in the teaching profession. A positive attitude will help you cope with these in the best way. For example, you may find out the first day of school that you are teaching Algebra 2 instead of Algebra 1. This would not be an ideal situation, but a teacher with the right attitude would try to focus on getting through the first day without negatively impacting the students.
3. High Expectations
An effective teacher must have high expectations. You should strive to raise the bar for your students. If you expect less effort you will receive less effort. You should work on an attitude that says that you know students can achieve to your level of expectations, thereby giving them a sense of confidence too. This is not to say that you should create unrealistic expectations. However, your expectations will be one of the key factors in helping students learn and achieve.
4. Consistency
In order to create a positive learning environment your students should know what to expect from you each day. You need to be consistent. This will create a safe learning environment for the students and they will be more likely to succeed. It is amazing that students can adapt to teachers throughout the day that range from strict to easy. However, they will dislike an environment in which the rules are constantly changing.
5. Fairness
Many people confuse fairness and consistency. A consistent teacher is the same person from day to day. A fair teacher treats students equally in the same situation. For example, students complain of unfairness when teachers treat one gender or group of students differently. It would be terribly unfair to go easier on the football players in a class than on the cheerleaders. Students pick up on this so quickly, so be careful of being labelled unfair.
6. Flexibility
One of the tenets of teaching should be that everything is in a constant state of change. Interruptions and disruptions are the norm and very few days are ‘typical’. Therefore, a flexible attitude is important not only for your stress level but also for your students who expect you to be in charge and take control of any situation.
March 29, 2012
Although computer teachers have some advantages, I prefer human teachers. Human teachers make learning fun, and they can be caring and understanding.
Computer teachers do have some advantages. The computer teachers can teach more than the human teachers can in about the books. They have better memory than the human teacher has because they are computers, computer can memorize anything. Moreover, computer teachers will be fairly to all of the students. In addition, students learn from the computers, they can learn more independently because t he computer cannot care when they do not pay attention in the class.
However, human teachers sometimes have a sense of humour and are more fun than computers. The human teacher can teach the students in the best way, they know what the students want. Moreover, they can make the students know what life is; the human teachers can talk their life experience to the students, this is very important to the future of the students. The students can learn some things that out of the books from the human teachers. Moreover, they will care the students, they will care what do the students will do after school or do they feel happy or not. The human teachers also can make friends with the students.
March 20, 2012
On the 6th day, God created men and women.
On the 7th day, he rested.
Not so much to recuperate, but rather to prepare himself for the work he was going to do on the next day. For it was on that day-the 8th day-that God created the FIRST TEACHER.
This TEACHER, though taken from among men and women, had several significant modifications. In general, God made the TEACHER more durable than other men and women.
The TEACHER was made to arise at a very early hour and to go to bed no earlier than 11:30 p.m.- with no rest in between. The TEACHER had to be able to withstand being locked up in an air-tight classroom for six hours with thirty-five “monsters” on a rainy Monday. And the TEACHER had to be fit to correct 103 term papers over Easter vacation.
Yes, God made the TEACHER tough…but gentle too.
The TEACHER was equipped with soft hands to wipe away the tears of the neglected and lonely student…of those of the sixteen year old girl who was not asked to the prom.
And into the TEACHER God poured a generous amount of patience. Patience when a student asks to repeat the directions the TEACHER has just repeated for someone else. Patience when the kids forget their lunch money for the fourth day in a row. Patience when one-third of the class fails the test. Patience when the text books haven’t arrived yet, and the semester starts tomorrow.
And God gave the TEACHER a heart slightly bigger than the average human heart.
For the TEACHER’s heart had to be big enough to love the kid who screams, “I hate this class-it’s boring!” and to love the kid who runs out of the classroom at the end of the period without so much as a “goodbye”, let alone a “thank you”.
And lastly, God gave the TEACHER an abundant supply of HOPE. For God knew that the TEACHER would always be hoping. Hoping that the kids would someday learn how to spell… hoping not to have lunchroom duty… hoping that Friday would come… hoping for a free day…. hoping for deliverance.
When God finished creating the TEACHER, he stepped back and admired the work of his hands. And God saw that the TEACHER was good. Very Good! And God smiled, for when he looked at the TEACHER, he saw into the future.
He knew that the future is in the hands of the TEACHERS.
And because God loves Teachers so much, on the 9th day
March 14, 2012
By using this you can know the ways how to avoid the mistakes you make in your day to day life, and to come out of those trouble which arises due to those mistakes. Avoid the “I Can’t Teach” mistakes by learning how to teach. Okay, I have once again stated the obvious, but why isn’t it obvious to some adjuncts? Talk to the person who hired you and ask about resources your college may have. Ask someone to observe you. Ask other instructors for advice. And, if all else fails, read my blog. (You knew that was coming. )
Avoid the “I Don’t Care” mistakes by putting in the time and effort. There are no shortcuts. Wait, maybe there is one. You can avoid these mistakes by not teaching. And interestingly enough, not teaching is the only way to avoid the “I Don’t Like You” mistakes. Sorry, there is no way around this one.
March 6, 2012
Preparation – These instructors assume they can wing it and come to class without a lesson plan. They seem to think they can awe their students with their knowledge and experience. What awes their students is the instructor’s lack of preparation and resultant inability to help them learn. For more on this check out my article entitled Do Boy Scouts Make the Best Instructors.
Efficiency – Some instructors don’t effectively use the entire class period, which means they don’t give their students what they paid for. They arrive late, use the first part of class for their own preparation time, waste time telling stories and chatting, grant long breaks, and dismiss class early. Pretty cushy job if you can get it. Some seem to think this was the job they signed on for, but sooner or later learn they were wrong.
Quality – I first addressed this issue in an earlier article entitle The Perceived Quality of a College Instructor. These individuals have poor board skills. If they use slides the slides are poorly done. Their handouts look like copies of copies of copies. They may be blurred, canted at an angle, or off-centered so that some of the text cut off. These instructors don’t project a professional appearance. On a couple occasions, I have had to speak to an adjunct about his attire. Teachers wearing ragged cutoffs and flip-flops don’t cut it in my classrooms.
March 1, 2012
There is so much that goes into teaching. I am not attempting to claim that only three knowledge or skill base mistakes may result. But what I list are three critical mistakes that students don’t like and which can lead to the demise of an instructor.
* Telling vs. Teaching – These instructors tell their students what they need to know. This is a type of lecturing void of examples and without student involvement. These instructors do not engage the class. They do nothing to make their students think.
* Reading – There are few things that annoy students more than reading to them out of the textbook, yet this is a complaint I hear. And this is one I recently witnessed during a classroom observation. If you want your students to think you are not prepared and that you don’t know.
* Rich Learning Experiences – Some instructors fail to use technology in the classroom to enrich the learning experience. For example, they don’t use PowerPoints and the don’t utilize relevant resources on the Web. Some don’t use it outside the classroom either. They pass up the opportunity to create a teaching presence using programs like Blackboard and Moodle. There are many other ways to create rich learning experiences such as films, role playing, field trips, group work, and much, much more. However, these instructor fail to employ them.
February 27, 2012
Teaching in colleges is marked by historic paradox: though institutions constantly talk up its importance, they evaluate faculty primarily on the basis of scholarly achievements outside the classroom. Teaching is what almost every professor does, but it seems to suffer from that very commonness. It occupies the greatest amount of most professors’ time, but rarely operates at the highest level of competence.
There seems to be an ingrained academic reluctance to regard teaching in the same way the profession regards every other set of skills: as something that can be taught. Professors who take painstaking care for method within their discipline of chemistry, history, or psychology, for example, all too often are unreflective when it comes to teaching.
Some professors even regard teaching as so straightforward that it requires no special training. Others find it so personal and idiosyncratic that no training could ever meet its multiplicity of demands. But most share the common folk belief that teachers are born and not made. “He (or she) is a born teacher,” is said of too many good teachers as a copout by those who aren’t. And some good teachers fuel this belief by agreeing, “I guess I’m a good teacher. Things seem to go well in the classroom. The students say they like what I do. But I don’t really know how I do it.”
In fact, the marginal truth in this belief applies no more to teaching than to any other profession. If there are born teachers, there are born physicians, born attorneys, and born engineers. Yet those who are naturally great at these professions invariably spend an unnatural amount of time acquiring skills and practicing in the vortex of intense competition. Potentially great teachers become great teachers by the same route: through conditioning mind, through acquiring skills, and through practicing amidst intense competition (Eble, 1988).
The interest in improved teaching has mushroomed rapidly in recent years, burrowing into all areas of the country and all types of institutions. Colleges and universities are moving from lip-service endorsements of the importance of teaching to concerted and sustained efforts to improve programs. Faculty and administrators flock to teaching conferences; government agencies and private foundations offer financial support, and a wave of new books on the subject appear.
February 23, 2012
In 1066 William the Conqueror, the Duke of Normandy (part of modern France), invaded and conquered England. The new conquerors (called the Normans) brought with them a kind of French, which became the language of the Royal Court, and the ruling and business classes. For a period there was a kind of linguistic class division, where the lower classes spoke English and the upper classes spoke French. In the 14th century English became dominant in Britain again, but with many French words added. This language is called Middle English. It was the language of the great poet Chaucer (c1340-1400), but it would still be difficult for native English speakers to understand today.
