Wednesday, April 16, 2008
A bit intimidating...
Okay, as if I wasn't intimidated enough by the thought of teaching, Gallagher's words on page 198 completely freaked me out. All of this talk about effective and ineffective teachers has led me to wonder...if you're an ineffective teacher, do you know it? Or are you just walking around in a haze thinking you're genuinely helping your students? I mean, I can think of some incredibly ineffective teachers right off hand, but the effective teachers are harder for me to come up with. Are effective teachers elusive creatures? Is effective just a relative term? Can you ever be effective for every one of your students? Is there enough time in the day to accomplish that??
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6 comments:
You're right... that is pretty dang scarey. I'm afraid I will end up being one of those teachers; not on purpose, but I always have had thoughts like that at the back of my head. I am just going to try and do the best that I can and hope that my students learn something from it.
These are hard questions to ask - and good ones. I think about the effective teachers I had in high school and they all made me feel like I was a part of their classroom and I enjoyed what they were teaching me because they were able to make their lesson interesting, fun, and I acutally felt that I was learning something (my geometry teacher was the best - I actually looked forward to going to math everyday, which is pretty amazing considering that it was one of my worst subjects in hs).
I hope that I can be an effective teacher everyday, but maybe those times where we feel that we are ineffective are really times that students are pushed to rely less on their teachers and try to learn something on their own. Maybe if they are able to do this, then in essence, we are effective teachers.
I think the fact that you are questioning your abilities and effectiveness renders you effective.
Ineffective, as most of us have observed, are not concerned with how well the students are receiving the information as much as they are concerned with getting through it. I don't know how many times I've watched teachers ramble on and bore a class to death with no realization that it simply isn't working. You have to care about your effectiveness to be effective.
As effective teachers, we will recognize when students are not paying attention and question, "Is this lesson losing everyone?" If the answer is yes, we know it's us. Make adjustments and try again.
I don't think any of us are going to be 100% effective teachers our first few years. I think it comes through trial and error, and correction. Ineffective teachers are those who never realize they've erred.
~Stan
I think there are a lot of factors that could make a teacher ineffective. A teacher could have great relationships with his/her students and a solid classroom community, but not understand assessment; that teacher's class may discuss great things but not take anything with them. A teacher could teach the wrong things, but teaches them in a way students retain. I don't think you can put your finger on the one thing that seperates good teachers from bad. It's a real balancing act.
Those are some really good questions. I could think i was a completely effective teacher, but 20 years down the road find out that i was nothing to those students. I do agree with Stan that asking yourself how to be effective and if you meet the goals, it makes you recognize your effectiveness.
I think that the questions that you are asking in your post are ones that we will all be asking ourselves! Thats why self-reflection is necessary as well as collaborating with other teachers!! We have to help each other out!! But don't worry you're going to make a great teacher!!!
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