Teaching
Teaching is a burden. I have to assume that at some level most teachers are aware of the impact they are capable of having on a students life. With awareness of this ability must come a sense of duty. Much more then the knowledge that is shared.
First, we learn from our parents. The foundation for vital things like language, customs, ethics, and social behavior are layed at this stage. Long ago this would have encompased the majority of an individuals education. In contrast to this children today are sent at a fairly young age to "professionals" to recieve their education. For the majority of their day they are sharing the attention of a single individual in lue of a more intimate family enviroment.
Two things of significance strike me about this situation. The first is that I somehow don't see how it is possible to learn societies custems, ethics, and and so on without constant exposure to those who have the most experiance with these maters, adults. Sure, they have the teacher but as I can attest, a teacher is acting the role of teacher every time they get up there. What you see and understand is not a full human being, just the part that is neccessary for the task. How can we act surprised that our children appear to be taking longer and longer to grow up when we spend less and less time with them? More often then not a parent might spend 2-3 hours with there children a night if they work. Compare that to the 7 hours of psuedo-society spent at school and 2-3 hours of television watched a night. Neither of those are sufficient substitutes for the real thing.
The second is that I feel that it is rare that a teacher formally recognizes this responsibility. I can't blame them. As a TA I could barely handle the knowledge that my grading could be responsible for failing/tanking someones grade point average. I wrote earlier on the frustration experianced by a student, another event that weighed heavily on my concience. I have no doubt that at some point most teachers must turn their back on this responsibility in order to survive.
Would a teacher then continue growing as an educator? Possibly but I doubt it. Likely they will continue with the motions and if they do grow, it will not through experiance but through theory read in a book or seen on TV. How much of this monotony before they become the burned out husks of teachers we all remember?
So many more places I could take this but I will end with a question to myself:
Can I notice the turning point? If I can what would I do?
Questions in general:
Would paying teachers more help? Does closely regulating what teachers teach help? Are there alternatives to the current system?
The last one is most interesting.
First, we learn from our parents. The foundation for vital things like language, customs, ethics, and social behavior are layed at this stage. Long ago this would have encompased the majority of an individuals education. In contrast to this children today are sent at a fairly young age to "professionals" to recieve their education. For the majority of their day they are sharing the attention of a single individual in lue of a more intimate family enviroment.
Two things of significance strike me about this situation. The first is that I somehow don't see how it is possible to learn societies custems, ethics, and and so on without constant exposure to those who have the most experiance with these maters, adults. Sure, they have the teacher but as I can attest, a teacher is acting the role of teacher every time they get up there. What you see and understand is not a full human being, just the part that is neccessary for the task. How can we act surprised that our children appear to be taking longer and longer to grow up when we spend less and less time with them? More often then not a parent might spend 2-3 hours with there children a night if they work. Compare that to the 7 hours of psuedo-society spent at school and 2-3 hours of television watched a night. Neither of those are sufficient substitutes for the real thing.
The second is that I feel that it is rare that a teacher formally recognizes this responsibility. I can't blame them. As a TA I could barely handle the knowledge that my grading could be responsible for failing/tanking someones grade point average. I wrote earlier on the frustration experianced by a student, another event that weighed heavily on my concience. I have no doubt that at some point most teachers must turn their back on this responsibility in order to survive.
Would a teacher then continue growing as an educator? Possibly but I doubt it. Likely they will continue with the motions and if they do grow, it will not through experiance but through theory read in a book or seen on TV. How much of this monotony before they become the burned out husks of teachers we all remember?
So many more places I could take this but I will end with a question to myself:
Can I notice the turning point? If I can what would I do?
Questions in general:
Would paying teachers more help? Does closely regulating what teachers teach help? Are there alternatives to the current system?
The last one is most interesting.
posted by Craig Snoeyink at 11:30 AM
2 Comments:
Interesting thoughts. In response to a teacher's continuous education, I would say that the good teachers are the ones who stay on top of their field (i.e., technology, new ideas). You could pull a Jim Drake on this one and have your students turn in summaries of tech articles and learn by reading what they wrote. :-D Many teachers will tell you that are constantly learning from their students.
I think you'll make a great prof some day, Craigery! :-)
Philip Greenspun:
Without a required educational program or state-imposed sanctions on entry to the field, what can it mean to be a "professional programmer"? Let's take a step back and look at degrees of professional achievement within medicine. Consider three doctors:
* Surgeon 1 does the same operation over and over in a Beverly Hills clinic and makes a lot of money.
* Surgeon 2 is competent in all the standard operations but in addition has developed an innovative procedure and, because of the time devoted to innovation, makes less money than Surgeon 1.
* Surgeon 3 has developed an innovative procedure and practices it regularly, but also makes time for occasional travel to France, China, Japan, and Argentina to teach other doctors how to practice the innovation.
Most of their fellow physicians would agree that Surgeon 3 is the "most professional" doctor of the group. Surgeon 3 has practiced at the state of the art, improved the state of the art, and taught others how to improve their skills. Is there a way for a programmer to excel along these dimensions?
From Software Engineering for Internet Applications.
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