Presence

Presence is also an important disposition in the classroom. Maintaining control of your classroom has a lot to do with presence. I had one teacher who was very quiet. He was even soft-spoken in the classroom. He was, however, very effective at maintaining control of his classroom and was able to create a positive learning environment. If someone else would not stop talking, he would quietly ask them to stop, but in a way that always was effective at ending their side conversation. I have had much more outgoing teachers who have been extremely uneffective at classroom management. Presence is about creating a positive working environment while keeping students on task. Classroom management plays an important role, but it is also about observing your students and determining what needs to be done to communicate the information to them successfully while maintaining their focus. One's presence directly ties into their success or failure at getting their students to learn the desired information.

Flexibility

Flexibility is a very important disposition to teaching in public schools. Students of this day and age have a shortened attention span, and one never knows what his or her students may do. Disruptions can throw off carefully planned lesson plans, or students may be incredibly focused the next day. There's always the random firedrill. Aside from the random interruptions, a students can ask a question that can stimulate good discussion. It is necessary to allow some of these discussions to change the path of the class while saving some discussions for another time. Overall, it is important to maintain a certain level of flexibility in the classroom.

Resilience

Resilience is a disposition that is essential to teaching. Unfortunately, many teachers do not have resilience and give up on either a student, a class, or teaching all together. This does, however, leave the teachers with resilience in education. Teachers who refuse to let their students fail are the teachers who create interest in a subject and instill a love for education. Resilience is what keeps one going when "the going gets tough." Teaching can be one of the most rewarding professions around. It will, however, test one from time to time. The resilience of a teacher will be the determining factor between success and failure.

Efficacy

At my high school, there were huge differences between the top ten percent of each grade and the rest of the students. The top ten percent were motivated, hardworking, and extremely involved. In the clubs, musicals, and sports teams, the members were shared. The students who were successful at my high school benefitted, at some point from a parent or a teacher with a great deal of efficacy. A teacher should inspire his or her students to perform at a high level. Efficacy is closely related to motivation, as both dispositions lead to higher student involvement and gives them the self-confidence required to thrive in an academic environment.

I wanted my high school to adopt a mentoring program in which one or two students in the top ten percent went into a freshman advisory a few times a week and mentored the freshman. Unfortunately, this program was not created until after I graduated, but it was created. I believe that, if the older students take their roles as mentors seriously, they can help get the freshman more involved. They can also help the freshman get on the right track.

Efficacy is an important for all teachers to have. As a swim teacher over the summer, I had to be as much of a coach as I was a teacher. I had one kid in a level one class, which was the lowest level, who had been in level one for years. This boy was convinced that he could not swim. It took me two of the three weeks to get him comfortable enough to float on his back without my help, but he took off after that. He passed level two in the next three weeks and will be taking level three next summer. Efficacy, like motivation, allows students to become more confident and, eventually, more successful.

Inventiveness

The youtube video had one point that stood out. By the time children reach high school, they no longer have the courage to take a chance and get a question wrong. They no longer want to think outside the box, or to ask questions. They simply want to know what information they need to retain in order to get an A. I believe that a major cause of this is our educational system's stressing of math and grammar. The standardized tests, while varying slightly, all place enormous weight on subjects that have right and wrong answers with no middle ground. Other subjects with standardized tests, like AP Exams, are being standardized. However, writing portions allow some form of creativity to show through. A student still must come up with correct information, but answers can be more creative.

Instead of rewarding creativity, our schools only reward correct answers. It is obvious that correct answers must be rewarded, but creative answers and questions that provoke critical thinking should also receive praise. With more students going to college right now because of the recession, degrees will not be worth as much as they were before our economic downturn. It is the critical thinking skills, as the speaker in the video said, that will give our students an edge when they look for a job.

While our schools are emphasizing math and grammar, the arts are losing funding. At my high school, the students who took basic level art and drama classes were, for the most part, the kids whose behavior was questionable at best. Art teachers had to act as baby-sitters rather than educators. The same went for the low-level music classes. The students who were really drawn towards the arts had to "suffer" through a year with the kids whose behavior was so bad in order to get to the higher-level classes. Every student deserves a chance to be artistic and creative, but students should be excited about taking these classes, and all classes. Disruptive behavior should not ruin classes for students who are excited to be in those classes.

I believe that elementary schools and middle schools need to reward students for participation and having a good attitude while encouraging the students to be involved. This cannot happen while standardized testing is the determining factor when it comes to funding. Until schools can control the ways they do things, creativity will continue to suffer. Some will argue that, without standardized testing, "bad" teachers will ruin the educational chances of kids. I, however, will reply that the focus on standardized testing is taking away valuable instruction time, and it can punish "good" teachers who inherit students who lack the skills required to pass the test. Rather than forcing a teacher to teach to the test, we should allow educators to teach our children in a style that they feel will be most helpful to our students. If our students are currently unable to compete with students from other nations, it is time to try something new. Sticking with No Child Left Behind will continue to hold our children back as long as it exists.

Role Play and its Role in the Classroom

This post will be focusing on the role playing as a form of education, but will touch on other issues as well.

Concerning role play as a form of education, I feel it is effective only if the students really take it seriously and attempt to play their points of view. For example, the students in Monday's role play, particularily those who played the parents of the low achieving students and the business owners of Decorah, took it seriously and got into it. Because they got into it, I believe that the role play was more successful. Rather than simply focusing on the hypothetical plan, we discussed whether those who supported the plan (the tax payers, the business owners, and the parents of highly achieving students) or supported what we do as teachers typically recieve more attention than those who disagree with us. Those who disagree could have helpful suggestions that would allow us to help more students to succeed. The problem, as the role play showed, was that disagreements can easily become personal attacks. When this happens, it becomes nearly impossible for the two sides to take advice from each other. This discovery occurred because students were emotionally into the role play. I believe that role playing is more successful when students get emotionally into them. If the students are emotionally engaged, they will try harder to prove their points, and the role play will be more effective.

Another good aspect of role playing is that it does not take an advanced understanding of the subjects it is covering in order to do. This applied to our role play on Monday. We did not spend a great deal of time covering No Child Left Behind, but we were able to role play in a situation that focused on many aspects of NCLB. This would not be the case if we were writing a paper, taking a test, or presenting a slide show on the act. Each of these would require a great deal of preparation. There was some preparation involved with the role play, but it was less extensive. The moderators had the most preparing to do, with each group simply focusing on their opinions and reasons for having those opinions. There was not a feeling of unpreparedness; rather, I would argue that most students would say that the exercise was as helpful as a test, paper, or presentation would have been. Getting emotionally involved motivates students and helps them to learn the material. They may not have focused on facts that they would have likely memorized for a test or written in a paper, but they got a good understanding about the problems that are involved reforming changing our system of education. I feel that role playing is a very effective form of education because it motivates students by getting them emotionally involved.

Passion

Passion is absolutely necessary for each and every educator. A reason that every person should want to teach is because he or she is passionate about something and feels that he or she can make a profound impact upon the lives of his or her students by sharing that knowledge. The best teachers I've had have been extremely passionate about their subjects. In high school, the three teachers who had the most impact on me were all extremely passionate about their subjects and about teaching in general. The most passionate of these has a profound impact upon the lives of his students and had a profound impact on me.

My AP Government teacher was the most passionate teacher I have come into contact with. Every year, he takes about 20 students to Washington D.C. to interview politicians about a topic that each researches individually throughout the first semester. He is very passionate about the trip to D.C., requiring each student to become an expert on his or her subject by requiring 30 pages of research papers, including a 15 page history of the topic. Each year, former members of "Washington Seminar" return to describe their topics and experiences. Each one is asked his or her major and over half of the returning students reply that they are political science majors. The trip was one of the best experiences of my life, and I almost became a political science major because of that program. I feel that he taught me more about the actual workings of the government than I could have learned from studying from a textbook. This class exists because of my teacher. He works to keep contacts with many politicians including the Embassy of Israel, the two Wisconsin state senators, and two of the state representatives. He works to fundraise for students who otherwise would not be able to attend the trip, and he makes the trip an unforgettable experience that is unlike anything else I have done. All this is possible because a teacher is so passionate about what he does that he is willing to do whatever it takes to make the program successful. It is this kind of passion that makes a successful educator.

Authenticity

When I think about dispositions that are important for an educator, authenticity is not the first one that comes to mind.  Nevertheless, it is important to education.  I cannot stand a teacher who attempts to win his or her students over and become best friends with them.  There are times when it is appropriate for a teacher to share a story or piece of information about his or her personal life, but when things become too personal, it becomes difficult to gain the respect of students.  My personal experiences have shown me that a teacher who becomes too friendly with his or her students loses some of the respect that is required in the classroom.  When a student misbehaves or does poorly, it can seem more like a personal attack.  On the other hand, it is important for a teacher to attempt to relate to his or her students.  I see many similarities between the level of authenticity that is appropriate for the classroom and the types of families. Many families operate under each category, and each person has an opinion of how strict parents should be with their children.  I was raised in an authoritative family, and, like the authoritative family's level of strictness, I believe that there is a fine line between too much or too little authenticity in the classroom.  It is important, I believe, to relate to the students without becoming too friendly or concealing too much personal information.  I will strive to stay between those lines when I begin teaching.

Compassion

My second post will focus on compassion and its importance in the classroom.  Compassion is vital for good teachers.  Without compassion, why should one teach?  If a studet comes to his or her teacher for advice, or that student is obviously struggling, would a teacher who lacks compassion care enough to help the student?  What could the teacher possibly accomplish without compassion? The answer is obviously that the teacher cannot teach anyone without compassion (a desire to understand and help improve the conditions of students' lives). Education itself helps to improve the conditions of students' lives, so compassion is necessary for all teachers. Without the desire to help others to improve their lives, one should not even consider teaching.

I have forever in my mind a substitute teacher for my second grade class who completely lacked compassion.  Whether she was truly heartless or simply tired of dealing with students who took advantage of the substitute I will never know, but a situation occured that needed to be handled with compassion, but the teacher chose to ridicule the student in front of the class.  This event has stuck with me through the years and reminds me that compassion is crucial for a successful classroom.  Respect, which I focused on last week, is affected by compassion. It is earned over time, but it can be lost the moment that one shows a lack of compassion. As a teacher, one cannot allow this to happen. A feeling of compassion should motivate all teachers to make their students in to the best people they can be, both in terms of character and success in vocation.

1. Respect

Respect is the perfect disposition to begin the blogs with because it is an absolutely crucial aspect of a healthy learning environment.  The classes in which I felt there was a mutual level of respect between the teacher and the students were my favorite classes and, more importantly, the classes that taught me the most.  

Going to class and feeling that your teacher is truly interested in your input, thoughts, and contributions always has encouraged me to work harder outside of class.  This obviously allowed me to take a great deal more out of the class and increased my interest in that subject.  

For the teacher, it is necessary to have some level of respect from your students in order to succeed, if succeeding for a teacher would mean that your students would learn the material you attempted to teach them.  Students who are going to learn need to pay attention, do their homework, etc.  Respect from his or her students allows a teacher to actually teach his or her students rather than focusing on behavioral problems.

By establishing an atmosphere with mutual respect, both the teacher and the student will have a comfortable working environment in which they can each be successful.  Both will feel that their opinions will be taken seriously and will strive to succeed in the learning process.  Respect can be the difference between a class that is simply "ok" and a class that makes an impact on the lives of the students in it.