What I Believe (for now) About Teaching, Learning, and Schooling

What I Believe (for now) About Teaching, Learning, and Schooling

A young boy stands on a beach surrounded by thousands of starfish stranded in the sand. The boy picks them up one at a time and tosses them back into the water. An older gentleman walks to his side and says, "Young man, you are wasting your time. There are too many. You cannot even HOPE to make a difference." The boy smiles at him, picks up another starfish and tosses it into the water, then says, "I made a difference to that one."

---Anonymous

Teachers may sometimes feel like that boy on the beach, as if we are fighting a losing battle against cultural diversity in the classroom, learning difficulties, standardized testing, resistant parents, and politics in education. But, we must remember the most important component in education: the children. And, like that boy on the beach, we must strive to make a difference, one step at a time. During my field experience, I observed teachers who were striving to make a difference one student at a time; they treated their students as individuals and not as carbon copies of one another. Because of the dedication and stamina required, I believe that teaching is a calling not a profession. Profession, to me, suggests that one will do the minimum amount of work required, while calling suggests a dedication that goes beyond "job description." I believe truly effective teachers love learning and will never stop learning new things on a personal level. In addition, I believe teachers should be "guides" and not "leaders." A guide is authoritative, points a student toward a path of self-discovery, is on hand for advice, and answers questions students may have along the way. A leader, on the other ha...

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...whole beings rather than classify them according to skills or deficiencies in certain educational categories. As Wood states, "one has to wonder why we believe that just because kids pass a standardized test they know something" (192).

I have no doubt that I will often feel like that gentleman on the beach, as if the challenges I am facing are as insurmountable as quickly dispersing that pile of struggling starfish. But I also believe there will be days I, like the optimistic boy, will know that I can make a difference, even if it is only one at a time.

Works Cited

Brooks, Martin G. and Jacqueline Grennon Brooks. "The Courage to Be Constructivist." Educational Leadership.

November 1999.

Dewey, John. Dewey on Education. Martin S. Dworkin, ed. New York: Teachers College Press, 1959.

Wood, George. Schools that Work. New York: Plume, 1992.