One of the topics discussed in the reading that stood out most to me was about whether teachers are teaching students or the subject matter. I've honestly never thought about this question, but it led me to think about it immensely. I came to the conclusion that the reason I've never thought about this question is because most of the classes I've take in the education program has focused more on how to be a teacher rather then on how to teach students, and there's definitely a difference.
In being taught how to be a teacher, it seems we focus more on what we should and shouldn't do, instead of actually focusing on the students. I feel that in our specific education program, we haven't been given the opportunity to engage in our field experience classrooms as much as is necessary. I've only taught one lesson in a classroom and have worked individually with several students, but I've never felt I was entirely engaged in the classroom. This may be on the part of the teachers and schools we are paired up with, but I'd like to be given more of an opportunity to engage with the students and prepare myself.
And what I've noticed from my field experience is that most teachers have also only been taught how just to be teachers rather then how to teach their students. When I did my field experience at Southridge in an intensive reading class, while I liked my teacher, I felt that she was only doing what she had to do and wasn't focused so much on making sure the students were learning. While this may not be entirely her fault, as her job description was to make sure the students passed the FCAT reading portion, I could see that the students weren't necessarily learning, as much as they were regurgitating what she gave them. This shouldn't be how the classroom works, however. We as teachers should be ensuring that our students are actually learning and most likely, if the previous teachers of the students in the classroom had taught their students rather than just taught the subject, perhaps most of them would not be in the intensive reading class.
Overall, I feel that we need to find a balance of teaching a subject and teaching our students. We can't just completely abandon the subject, but we also need to remember that we're teaching people. Perhaps to help with this, education programs in college and universities should make sure that their students are given ample time in the classroom and are better prepared to teach students, rather then them just taking classes on how to be and act like a teacher.
I completely agree with you that many teachers forget that they are teaching the child, and of even more importance, that they are there to teach the whole child, which entails teaching to that particular child's strengths and areas in need of improvement. Unfortunately, field experiences in many universities are opportunities to observe teaching. But as we have discussed in class, few of us have been thoroughly trained in observation to really benefit from that alone, i.e. interaction with students that includes teaching at least mini-lessons would be very beneficial, which is why we have now started to implement that as part of the field placement experience.
ReplyDeleteWe should discuss this in more length as a group since you bring up very important points that merrit from class input.