An actually interesting Teacher-Student problem.....

[TomVeil]

Joshua Menleon, 28, could tell the high school students he was assigned to teach thought he was almost as young as they were.

"They'd ask me questions about my musical tastes and movies and stuff like that, or if I play video games," said Menleon, who is training to be a communications technology teacher and just finished his first practicum at a high school in east Toronto last week.

But when it comes to establishing any sort of relationship with students beyond the bounds of school, Menleon said the rules he learned in his first semester at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education at the University of Toronto are clear: Don't do it.

Full Article:


http://www.thestar.com/News/GTA/article/278462

[xorbie]

I agree that this is actually interesting. I was talking to a friend recently (we are both just out of college) about the state of education in this country, and one of the things I thought was a bad turn was that teachers were supposed to remain entirely "objective".

It's clear from this attitude that the main priority of schools is to produce grades or some similar "objective" ranking of students. Even if we assume that having teachers getting to know their students better is somehow going to make them less objective (and this is reasonable, although one would hope that teachers would be capable of doing their job better), it seems that we are quite happy to sacrafice results in the domain of actual learning just to eliminate the possibility of any bias. Grades first, learning later.

It seems to be that a far better system would be to have teachers stay with a class for several years (say 1st-6th grade, 7th-9th, 10th-12th, or something similar). Teachers SHOULD know their class, they SHOULD know their students, they SHOULD be seen as mentors to whom their students can turn for help. With all the complaints that students are bored, that the material is seen as dry and distant, why wouldn't we want teachers who know their students well and are capable of making the material seem relevent and know how to teach it in the most effective way for their particular class?

[Zygote]

[ QUOTE ]
they SHOULD be seen as mentors to whom their students can turn for help

[/ QUOTE ]

teachers should not be mentors to children. Far too many of them are not wise and rather destructive.

children should be taught to think for themselves and understand essence instead of authority-style mentoring, rote tasks, poorly correlated grading systems, etc.

[adanthar]

[ QUOTE ]
It seems to be that a far better system would be to have teachers stay with a class for several years (say 1st-6th grade, 7th-9th, 10th-12th, or something similar).

[/ QUOTE ]

The Russian system does (or at least used to do) this. It's great for some number of students, but God help you if the teacher dislikes you for whatever reason. Additionally, what tends to happen is that two classes in the same school wind up with widely different amounts of knowledge (or even slants on) the same material over time. Bad idea, IMO.

[xorbie]

adan,

I thought the same thing. The system I had in mind (this came over a few sessions of hitting the fine hobbit leaf so details are a bit hazy) involved large "main classes" that would be supervised by multiple teachers, and then being split into much smaller classes for maybe 1/2 or 2/3 of the day. These smaller classes would deal with much more specific subjects, students would be given problems to work on/think about, and much of the work would be done in groups in these "main classes" under general supervision.

In theory this would allow for smaller classes, more specialized instruction, but not necessarily a much larger demand for teachers (just better teachers).

[xorbie]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
they SHOULD be seen as mentors to whom their students can turn for help

[/ QUOTE ]

teachers should not be mentors to children. Far too many of them are not wise and rather destructive.

children should be taught to think for themselves and understand essence instead of authority-style mentoring, rote tasks, poorly correlated grading systems, etc.

[/ QUOTE ]

And who would teach them this if the teachers are unwise and destructive? As is all too common, your post is self-defeating.

[TomVeil]

[ QUOTE ]
adan,

I thought the same thing. The system I had in mind (this came over a few sessions of hitting the fine hobbit leaf so details are a bit hazy) involved large "main classes" that would be supervised by multiple teachers, and then being split into much smaller classes for maybe 1/2 or 2/3 of the day. These smaller classes would deal with much more specific subjects, students would be given problems to work on/think about, and much of the work would be done in groups in these "main classes" under general supervision.

In theory this would allow for smaller classes, more specialized instruction, but not necessarily a much larger demand for teachers (just better teachers).

[/ QUOTE ]

This is a very good idea, and I've never heard anything like it before. You could even have one teacher all of one year, early in the schooling. Say 2nd-6th grade you rotate through each of the 5 teachers for a full year. Starting at 7th, it's more like you describe above. From somewhere 2nd to 6th grade, a kid is going to like one of their teacher. That would be the one that they would naturally talk to when they're having issues. And because there's more to "chose" from, the destructive teachers have less of an effect.

Very interesting.

[xorbie]

Tom,

Yeah, under any variation on the system I would want to have kids be able to give some feedback on teachers, if one teacher is getting a lot of negative feedback (or a small amount of very negative feedback), I wouldn't be against moving some kids out of the class, giving the teacher a sit down, etc

[TomVeil]

Plus, the added bonus that teachers will be less of a dick/bitch to a kid they don't like when the other teachers see that interaction, at least part of the day. The other teachers would step in when they see the teacher being destructive.

[Zygote]

[ QUOTE ]


And who would teach them this if the teachers are unwise and destructive?

[/ QUOTE ]

life will teach them this. Your idea that everyone needs a teacher is self defeating because how did the first initial person learn anything or are you proposing an infinite regression?

[ QUOTE ]
As is all too common, your post is self-defeating.

[/ QUOTE ]

example? where are your posts showing why that is so on any other topic ive addressed?