More handpicked essays just for you.
The role and responsibilities of a teacher
Ways to achieve effective inter-cultural communication
Ways to achieve effective inter-cultural communication
Don’t take our word for it - see why 10 million students trust us with their essay needs.
Book Analysis
Walking into a classroom on the first day of teaching is considered one of the most terrifying experiences imaginable. The first day sets the tone for the whole year. Is this class going to be a fun relaxing class, a hard and academically superior class, or a chaotic stressful class where the best part of the day is the end? Former teachers and now authors, Daniel Robb and Rafe Esquith describe their experiences of teaching new classrooms with new situations in their books Crossing the Water and Teach like Your Hair’s on Fire. They both talk about their experiences enlightening them to the importance of trust, respect, and being yourself. These three key components have a large impact on and can improve classroom management,
…show more content…
In Crossing the Water, Daniel explains a previous teaching experience that helped formed his approach to a sticky situation on the island. Daniel was teaching English and the topic of right English versus slang English came up during a quiz. Daniel handled the situation beautifully explaining the correct answer without degrading the way they grew up talking. He did not explain things as right or wrong for the possibility that his response could be “potentially damaging” by disrespecting his background, culture, guardians who raised him, and the way he grew up (Robb, 2001, p. 128). He continued by referring to a personal situation that paralleled theirs. Because he was able to manage the class in a way that was not degrading or vague the students were able to comprehend the material on a new and higher level that reflected the way they …show more content…
Students should see the human behind the scary instructor exterior. Being a dictator can lead to students fearing and resenting you. When this happens the students are unwillingly to stretch their minds and see how far their abilities can take them. They gain no sense of responsibility. They are just afraid of failing and suffering the wrath of the hard teacher. Only doing as much as they need to do satisfy the anger of the teacher. In Teach Like Your Hair’s on Fire, Rafe explains 6 levels of moral development. The most basic level of a student’s character development and reasoning is “Level 1: I don’t want to get in trouble” (Esquith, 2007, p.14). A teacher risks having their students stuck in this level and unable to grow to the ultimate “Level 6: I have a personal code of behavior and I follow it (the Atticus Finch level)” (Esquith, 2007, p. 22). Being genuine and yourself opens you up to the students and allows for them to reach you. This aspect contributes to the aspect of trust. Students will be more willing to open up and respond to you and your teaching techniques if they are facing a real, genuine and authentic teacher with feelings, passion for teaching, and sympathy (and to a certain point empathy) for the students themselves. As Rafe explains in his prologue “there are no shortcuts.” (Esquith, 2007, p. xii.). There is no easy way to get a classroom to obey your every direction, learn
Both Ronald Morrish and Craig Seganti have been educators for many years and have subsequently developed their theories over many years of teaching. Both believe that it’s important first to establish the belief in students that the educator has the authority and is in command. Morrish and Seganti both also stress the importance of establishing rules and teaching students how to comply with those rules. For instance, Morrish and Seganti assert that it’s critical to practice appropriate classroom rules. Both also agree that it’s important only to make rules that you’re absolutely willing to enforce and that students should not be involved in creating these rules. Moreover, Morrish and Seganti also have similar perspectives regarding how self-esteem
Education should have helped students; however, Derrick Jensen considers current educational system as inefficiency. Schooling offers students tools to live in “the real world”, but then, he questions “what sorts of beings we are creating by the process of schooling” (3). In Walking on Water, Jensen states that “we are told that standardized testing must be imposed to make sure students meet a set of standardized criteria so they will later be able to fit into a world that is itself increasingly standardized” (5). School gives out standardized tests among different subjects to examine how well each student knows about facts and information, and then, uses test scores to evaluate students’ abilities; also, this is how society estimates each
Wallis, Claudia. “How to Make Great Teachers.” Time Online. 13 Feb. 2008. Web. 16 March 2011.
To begin with, I will be informing and reviewing the book A Long Walk to Water. The Author of this book is Linda Sue Park. This book has two main genres which are realistic fiction and nonfiction. The reason this story has two genres is because it revolves around two characters with their own story. In A Long Walk to Water the main characters are Salva, Nya, Jewiir and Marial. Jewiir plays an important role in the book because his actions affect Salva as well as protect him. He is also the uncle of Salva. Salva learns how to become a leader and not give up because of his uncle. This story mainly wraps around Salva and Nya. Salva is a young kid who becomes one of the ¨lost boys of sudan¨. That means he ended up being displaced and orphaned during
I have read book called children of the river. It is about a girl named Sundara and she is trying to learn to live in america because of something that happened where she use to live. The starts out with Sundara and her family in their home while their dad is at work and someone tries to attack where she lived. They attacks and most of the people had to get on a boat down a river to escape from of all the horrible things that were happening. Some people on the boat were seasick and also people carried illnesses and lots of people were getting sick. They were really poor and for them it was a long journey for them to get to America. Sundara goes to America and goes to live with her Aunts and her other brother. Her
As the time approached, my attitude toward student-teaching was one of confidence and in some ways overconfidence. I believed that I was equipped with all of the tools necessary to be a superior teacher. Little did I know what truly goes on behind the scenes of a teacher. Between grading papers, attending meetings, and preparing lessons, I would often feel overwhelmed. Still, student teaching would prove to be much more valuable than I anticipated. It would teach me to appreciate the wisdom of mentors and experienced teachers, value or being organized and prepared, and lastly the resilience of students.
The job of a teacher is never easy but we have seen how cooperative discipline and enabling students to feel capable, connected and contributing can improve classroom management and maybe even our own moods. If we create an environment of mutual respect and give our students legitimate power of voice and choice in the classroom we will see positive results in improved student behavior and student achievement. Because when our students believe that they can succeed, they will.
Great teaching requires sacrifice and consistently puts the development of the child first Esquith, after teaching for over 30 years and writing several award winning books, exemplifies this child centered philosophy of teaching. His purpose is to share his dedicated and selfless approach to teaching with teachers, in the hope that they too, will be inspired ‘to teach like their hair is on fire.’ He believes that commitment to each individual student is essential. As a role model, he stresses the importance of being dependable and providing an atmosphere that is safe and that promotes the love of learning. He focusses on values and teaching his students to respect themselves and others, to be kind and to always work hard (Esquith, 2007). With Esquith’s simple motto of, “be nice, work hard and there are no shortcuts, in the classroom” (Esquith,2007), it is easy to see why his students are so happy and successful.
I try imparting into them the importance of an education and how they contribute to the growth of our society. In my classroom, I am in control. I draw a clear line between what and how much my students are allowed to do in the classroom. In the first week of school, I establish my authority and I clearly and explicitly express my classroom and outside the classroom procedures that will be followed and the rights that every student has in the classroom. Some examples, all students have the right to learn, all students have a right to be heard, and all students have a right to be respected. There are consequences for those that chose not to abide. This set the tone for my classroom environment for the entire year so, that learning may take
I’ve had teachers who taught in a way that was a good way for them to teacher, but wasn’t a good way for students to learn. I know I want to be a high school teacher, and by the time they will reach my class, my students should know how they should be presented the information, so that they can learn in such a way that is best for them. A teacher should be able to teach in a way that’s suitable for the majority of students, and be able to give extra help to those who don’t learn as the other students do. I want to be the teacher who is willing to put in extra time with the students for their classroom
To begin, we need to understand the nature of students. The nature of students varies between individuals. The majority of students are well-behaved and come to school ready to learn. Part of this is due to the way they have been raised, but most students are basically good. There is a small percent of students whose nature, it seems, is to make everyone miserable. I do not know if this is because of a difficult childhood at home or because the student just likes to be the center of attention. Either way, there are always students that will give their teachers a hard time. I guess this is their nature. Every individual is different, therefore, the nature of the students I will teach some day will be different depending on their background and other various things that may happen to them as they grow up. For example, a student that has lost a sibling due to an illness or accident, may become very bitter throughout life. The nature of this student’s behavior which is being shaped by this may make this student a cold-hearted and mean student. These are the students that teachers need to spend extra time with and try to make them feel loved, no matter how hard this may be. I, as a future teacher, need to look at students and try to help them out no matter how difficult that may be.
Over the course of observations, I learned that there is no one way to do anything in teaching. After a few weeks of observing, I was relieved because I thought that I could stop worrying so much about doing the “right” thing with the students. I saw a successful teacher doing, or neglecting to do things that went against what I had been taught. I incorrectly assumed that the choices the teacher made about how to organize the day, approach a lesson, or manage the classroom were mostly a matter of personal preference and that several approaches would produce equally desirable results.
For instance, the social powers model plays a significant role in building effective relationships that can promote the success of students and teachers. However, I agree that there needs to be a balance of each social power in order to have a positive effect on students; this is especially true for coercion and manipulation in the classroom. “These two social powers should be combined with a classroom management style that helps students see teachers as problem solvers (expertness) and as having personal characteristics that make the student want to perform well (likability)” (Alderman & Green, 2011, p. 43). As the text suggests, positive interaction among teachers and students is one of the most crucial elements of classroom management because it helps students become more engaged in the learning process, reduces misbehavior and promotes compliance. Thus, it’s critical to utilize the social powers model to build teacher-student communication and enhance relationships with students, for instance, making them feel secure and needed, learning their strengths and weaknesses, and figuring out what motivates them to want to
Coming into this class, I figured we would learn about how to handle different kinds of situations from a teacher’s standpoint. As it turns out, the class is much more than just that. I figured there would be group discussions consisting of some controversial issues, but I had no idea how the course would make me feel as a person and as a future educator. So far, this class has brought to light the incredibly difficult decisions I will have to make as a teacher. Not only will those decisions affect the child and parents of that child at hand, but myself as well.