The most unfortunate part of many courses on education is that they focus too much on blaming "old" teachers and traditional teaching practices. With all due respect to the instructor, I am so sick of hearing people bitch about the teachers who used lecture as their primary method of instruction. Yes it is true that lecturing and memorization are probably (or most definitely) not the most ideal or effective means of teaching, but I honestly believe that if a cure all for education really exists then it would have been discovered a long time ago. But until then, we will have to just continue to learn from past mistakes and work harder to become the most effective teachers possible. And doing this does not mean we point the finger at the past; it means we take a close look at our students and reflect upon was teaching methods proved to be the most effective.
I think the real reason that this issue irks me so much is that although I have met teachers who probably should have retired long ago, I have never met a cruel intentioned teacher. One can safely assume that most teachers were not drawn to the field for monetary reasons, but instead because they valued knowledge and wanted to spread their passion onto young minds. Perhaps the teacher never really knew the best way to do this, and was taught that lecturing and memorization were the traditional methods and should be upheld. But does anyone know how to teach every student?
What I would have liked is an expanded explanation of what is meant the by, "... Many instructional materials and much teacher behavior..." that suggest teachers believed information could just be dumped into the minds of children and then recalled for life. Surely these teachers know from their own experiences that everything learned in school cannot be reiterated for life.
But enough of my venting, and back to the question at hand: "Is teaching the transfer of information?" Well, that depends of if we mean transferring the information from the teachers mind to the student, or transferring the information into something that the student can make meaning of and enough connections to so that the information does not stand in isolation; irrelevant to the learner and therefor unnecessary to learn. Many of the ideas we had regarding "How We Learn" centered around the student thinking about the information: connecting new knowledge to old, problem solving, exploration, reflecting...
In all of the circumstances the student does not receive the information passively, which would be the case if we expected information just automatically be transferred from the teacher's mouth to the student's brain.
I have worked in 5 different schools over the past 6 years, and at each school I found a wide variety of teachers who wanted only the best for their students, and were devoted so much to their students that they continued to revise their curriculum as new research emerged. And of course I found those teachers who refused to budge from their traditional teaching methods. It's unfortunate, but it seems to be a dying breed.
I think that we could go on forever complaining about what is wrong with education, but was interests me more is what I learn when I close the education text books and allow the students to be my teachers. Because, to me, real education is experience and nothing gives me better experience than just working with the students and analyzing what works and doesn't work.
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I'm sorry to just be commenting now Meghan as I reread your posts for the mid-term grade. You mentioned several weeks ago that you feared I'd think you too negative. I whole heartedly agree that talking about what is bad and not offering an alternative is a deadend. I hope our class is not turning out that way.
ReplyDeleteI do not think that all lecturing is bad or that all small group work is good. But what I have read is that the most significant influence on how a teacher will teach is - how THEY were taught. Just like parenting.
But it doesn't have to be that way. Whether our teachers were very good or very bad, I think our goal must be to become conscious of what WE believe AND what we actually DO. Then we can reconcile them and choose to do what we think is best.
Schools present teachers with many pressures that do not support our ideal teaching environment. There are political and economic pressures that teachers shouldn't have to feel but they do. There are tests to administer, and scheduling nightmares that prevent teachers from getting good chunks of time to meet all the standards. There are 25 children, some who are hungry, many who are tired, those who have good reason to be sad or angry. Amidst all of this we hope that the teacher will create a positive relationship with each child, raise everyone a grade level in each subject, produce creative materials and learning activities. (Oh and gladly stay late for this event or that.)
Being a teacher is in my opinion the best job on the planet. But it is hard. And to be able to do it with joy in our hearts we need to be able to make choices constantly about what matters most - because we can't do it all.