The poem “Students,” by Tom Wayman and the story, “Crow Lake,” by Mary Lawson presents two teachers who cope with the same difficulties of teaching. Although the teachers are faced with identical circumstances, their resolutions for the problem vary. Wayman, in the poem, and the narrator in the story both fails to make connection with their students, however, Wayman understands his students’ behavior while the narrator refuses to communicate and simply gives up on teaching.
The two teachers introduced in “Students” and “Crow Lake” both struggle to engage their students’ interest because they can not connect well with the students. One of the main factors that separates Wayman and the narrator with their students is the generation gap. On Wayman’s first meeting with his freshman class, he already feels the distance between him and the students, as the speaker describes that “Wayman was sure the computer was in error,” because the birthdates it showed was so recent. (2-3, Wayman) There is a difference in values and attitudes between the generation the students and that of Wayman’s. Although Wayman probably needed the “Kung Fu Theory of Education” when he was young, in order to deal with hardships all by himself, the students, most of whom are still able to depend on their parents both financially and mentally, can not recognize the importance of Wayman’s words. (25, Wayman) The narrator in “Crow Lake” also senses the difference between she and her students, too. She wonders that “how many of the students” in her classroom “would have had the opportunity to see” the marvels of life which she had seen when she was little. (16, Lawson) The narrator does not understand why her students show almost no interest in the things she is so ...
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...ake the students’ apathy personally and affect her negatively.
The relationship between the two teachers and the students is of misunderstanding resulted from difference of generation, and the flaws each teacher has. The students do not understand the values of education as Wayman passionately teaches, and do not realize the wonders of life as the narrator in the story tries to deliver. Moreover, Wayman’s flaw of leniency and the narrator’s lack of communication skills further widens the gap between the teachers and students. However, Wayman is able to identify his students’ misunderstanding, and be unaffected by their indifference, while the narrator blames herself for her students’ apathy toward the subject and completely get discouraged from teaching. From these points above, Wayman in “Students” is more effective as a teacher than the narrator in “Crow Lake.”
In her poem “The School Children”, Louise Gluck uses imagery by applying an extended metaphor to show how going to school is similar to going to battle and by describing the mothers’ actions through the use of vivid verbs to portray the disconnection between children and their guardians, despite the sacrifices that mothers make.
... is directed towards schoolteachers and how they need to teach differently, it also points towards the growing of the next generation. It is amazing the thought and compassion behind Baldwin’s works and how much he has put into arguing such a touchy subject. He literally instills fear into his audience to the point where they cannot prevent taking action to change the way they teach. Whether or not someone argues with Baldwin’s argument it is still inevitable that the tension within the essay is creatively and wonderfully done. With Baldwin’s educated status and his persuasive personality his work is beautifully pieced together to create an undeniable force of authority for change in the education system.
The speaker is posing herself as a Cree student in school who is being silently ostracized. The student hates the education system, as she thinks it is dull and tedious, and the teachers have no faith in her intellect. However, she does not stop at her frustration, as, in the poem we see a certain turn-around: she is sick of playing dead, and as a result, she makes a firm decision to push for change. In the poem “Communications Class,” Connie Fife shows through form and school imagery, the frustrating experience of ostracization in school, but also the resilience a student can exhibit against it.
In determining why The Great Gatsby is so frequently assigned at various education levels, my thoughts reverted to our discussion on the Vendler text and the premise that teachers may be attempting to seduce their students into learning. In connection to this discussion, I reflected on my own classroom and what I hope to achieve with my students. I find the "seduction" of students to be an integral component in teaching students to appreciate the learning process. Not all learning is "fun," but I attempt to teach my students that it can at least be an interesting process.
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.
“If you would just get up and teach them instead of handing them a packet. There’s kids in here that don’t learn like that. They need to learn face to face. I’m telling you what you need to do. You can’t expect a kid to change if all you do is just tell ‘em.” Texas student, Jeff Bliss, decided to take a stand against the lack of teaching going on in his class (Broderick).
The Walls’ children have an exquisite education, they learn from real world experiences, life lessons, and their teaching-certified mother. Although Lori, Jeanette, Brian, and Maureen were practically raised on the streets at times, their parents spent plenty of time teaching them everything from how to make beds from random appliances, to knowing the importance of not judging people because of their skin color. After the kids move to Welch, they discover some places do not have very decent teaching expertise, Jeanette says “ …but he stood at the front of the room next to a map of West Virginia, with all fifty-five counties outlines, and spent the entire class pointing to the counties and asking students to identify them”(137). In Welch, the learning is appalling. They “pass the hour watching a film of the football game that Welch High had played several days earlier”(137), in Jeanette’s second period. The Walls’ children would be better off learning from a trailer in the middle of the desert than in Welch High. Maureen however, was practically raised in a different environment, she wasn’t taught all of the lessons her siblings were, sh...
In John Gatto’s essay “Against Schools” he states from experience as a school teacher that are current educational system is at fault (148). He claims that classrooms are often filled with boredom manufactured by repetitive class work and unenthusiastic teachings. Students are not actively engaged and challenged by their work and more often than not they have either already covered the concepts taught in class or they just do not understand what is being taught to them. The children contained in classrooms have come to believe that their teachers are not all that knowledgeable about the subjects that they are teaching and this advances their apathy towards education. The teachers also feel disadvantaged while fulfilling their roles as teachers because the students often bring rude and careless attitudes to class. Teachers often wish to change the curriculums that are set for students in order to create a more effective lesson plan, but they are restricted by strict regulations and consequences that bind them to their compulsory teachings (148-149). An active illustration of John Gatto’s perspective on our educational system can be found in Mike Rose’s essay “I Just Wanna Be Average” (157). Throughout this piece of literature the author Mike Rose describes the kind of education he received while undergoing teachings in the vocational track. During Mike’s vocational experiences he was taught by teachers that were inexperienced and poorly trained in the subjects they taught. As a result, their lesson plan and the assignments they prepared for class were not designed to proficiently teach students anything practical. For example, the curriculum of Mike Rose’s English class for the entire semester consisted of the repeated reading of ...
The plot of “The Lesson” contributes to its theme of freeing one's self from a social class. A group of New York City kids, but particularly the narrator, Sylvia, believe that they are better than the other people in their neighborhood, such as the junk man who does his work like he was a big-time president, or their volunteer teacher, Miss Moore. This feeling of superiority is unintentionally encouraged by the parents when they speak of Miss Moore like she is a dog (60). Consequently, Sylvia does not understand the importance of a college degree or that she and all the other children are poor (61). Miss Moore takes the children to F.A.O. Schwarz where they see very expensive toys and even a woman wearing a fur coat during summer; the children develop the general opinion that the “white folks crazy” (61-63). One toy in particular that catches their attention while window sh...
The teachers in Voc. Ed. were not capable of teaching well and did not believe in the abilities of their students. Rose’s homeroom teacher, Brother Dill, physically harmed his students by either shaking or smacking them to keep control in the classroom. Furthermore, the author soon deduced that the entire program was intended to be “a dumping ground for the disaffected” due to the lack of enthusiasm or
Students are motivated by many different things, for example Carly is motivated by chips. I remember when I was younger and took flute lessons, my teacher would give me candy if I practiced in between classes and improved. It also takes some students longer than others to learn things. It took Carly until she was 10 to really express herself. Even once she started typing she had to learn how to spell the words she wanted to write, she also had to learn to form sentences from those words. Some students might take longer than others to learn, as a future teacher we must be patient with the students and find the best way for them to learn the material. Another part of the book I found upsetting is when the general education teacher said she could not teach Carly anymore. She gave up on her without trying much to help Carly. As a future teacher, we must try to help all our students, even if they have
There wasn’t anybody in my class who cared about my teacher, Mrs. Parrish or what she was teaching or even about school in general. I thought it was just senioritis but when it came down to our senior projects, it was harder to know what our teacher expected out of us because everyone was talking and in their own little worlds. I finally got tired of not being able to hear Mrs. Parrish and got up to go and talk to her. One of Feynman’s students came up to him and mentioned that students would never ask questions because after class everybody would confront the student and question them with “What are you wasting our time in class for?” (Feynman pg. 71) I feel like I can relate because I found that the other students would judge me for asking a question. I felt this way because when I asked a question, all my classmates turned around and stared at me. As I asked Mrs. Parrish for help, she laid everything out for me and helped me in the ways she saw fit. As I started writing my essay, I wrote down everything she said to do and did it exactly how she said it. I first wrote a rough draft and Mrs. Parrish read over it and made corrections so that I could go back and fix it. When I got my rough draft back to start on my final draft, I barely had anything I needed to correct. I made a 98 on my essay and I think it was one of the highest in my class. I heard that a few of my classmates made low 60’s, 40’s and even zeros on the essay. I knew that they failed because they were not listening and my teacher had stated several times that once she went over it the first time that she won’t going over it again and that if we didn’t care, we would be back in twelfth grade again. I don’t remember what the percentages were but I knew that you had to do good on 3 of the 4 parts of our project to pass. I after senior projects were over, a group of my classmates were in the
In “What’s Wrong with Schools,” Casey Banas uses the experiences of Ellen Glanz, a high school social studies teacher to express how different students and teachers feel about schooling. Ellen Glanz chooses to improve her teaching by pretending to be a student and sitting in on several classes and what she finds in the typical classroom includes students doing the bare minimum, disinterest, cheating, detachment, the list goes on and on. I agree with Ellen Glanz in that this separation between educators and students causes a great amount of passivity. Unfortunately, these types of circumstances in classroom settings are becoming more and more typical.
It is important that education is properly enforced and easily accessed by all people. Poor teaching is implemented in the classroom today, such as boring lectures consisting of taking notes and regurgitating information. Because of this, people lack the motivation necessary to take advantage of their academic opportunities. In his essay “I Just Wanna Be Average,” Mike Rose writes about how during the majority of his academic career “[he] did what [he] had to do to get by, and [he] did it with half a mind” (154). Not only had Mike Rose done this, but other students follow in the same footsteps as if they are blind to how valuable education is and how it can empower a person. The type of an educator you are taught by can differentiate whether you will “do what you have to do to get by” or actually engage yourself while in the classroom. Mike Rose makes it obvious that school was not fascinating to him, but when he is introduced to a new teacher, Jack MacFarland he states that “[he] worked very hard, for MacFarland had hooked [him]; he tapped [his] old interest in reading and creating stories” (160). Professors like Jack MacFarland are what leave impacts on students and help them realize the importance of academics. Rose even states “MacFarland gave him a way to feel special by using his mind” (160). When educators can make students feel the way that MacFarland made Rose feel they can ascertain a great amount of
In this course I experienced an important change in my beliefs about teaching; I came to understand that there are many different theories and methods that can be tailored to suit the teacher and the needs of the student. The readings, especially those from Lyons, G., Ford, M., & Arthur-Kelly, M. (2011), Groundwater-Smith, S., Ewing, R., & Le Cornu, R. (2007), and Whitton, D., Barker, K., Nosworthy, M., Sinclair, C., Nanlohy, P. (2010), have helped me to understand this in particular. In composing my essay about teaching methods and other themes, my learning was solidified, my knowledge deepened by my research and my writing skills honed.