Posts tagged education
ms. lisa's musings and mayhems
Why learning should be messy
Distinctions Between Academic and Intellectual Goals in #ece
By Lillian Katz (c) 1999. You need to read this today! Add it to your #binder too!
The comment: “Johnny NEVER misbehaves/has trouble paying attention/hits other kids/acts out at home. I wonder what you’re doing in the classroom to make that happen.”
The comeback: “That is strange that Johnny has such different behavior in the classroom. Let’s figure out a way to get to the bottom of this. You’re welcome to observe my teaching any time you want. When can I come to your house?”
WHEN CAN I COME TO YOUR HOUSE?!!?!? LOVE IT!
Be Brave. Love it.
Everyone has their own reasons for becoming a teacher. However, most of those reasons are related to helping young people. No matter the pressures, be brave enough to be true to your convictions!
I have come to a frightening conclusion. I am the decisive element in the classroom. It is my personal approach that crates the climate. It is my daily mood that makes the weather. As a teacher I possess tremendous power to make a child’s life miserable or joyous. I can be a tool of torture or an instrument of inspiration. I can humiliate or humor, hurt or heal. In all situations it is my response that decides whether a crisis will be escalated or de-escalated, and a child humanized or de-humanized.
Perhaps Americans have gotten the education system and school reform they deserve. Perhaps the cult of measurement and the politicization of schools through endless testing and endless bureaucratic meddling is the perfect system for a largely apathetic public that pays a lot of lip service to the value of schools and education but oftentimes seems more engaged in Bachelorettes and Apprentices.
