A paper which I recently wrote for my Educational Psychology class:
I recently took the time to read over a journal that I kept about my first independent international experience: a month-long stay in small Mexican village. In attempting to synthesize everything that I experienced with the people and society of the Yucatan as a bright-eyed and curious 16-year-old, I concluded that one’s education is the most formative and important experience in his or her lifetime. I saw that societal decay tended to take place not because people are inherently “bad,” but because they did not have access to information that would allow them to overcome their life situations and successfully maneuver in the ever-globalizing world.
Interestingly enough, I have held that belief ever since. In all the travels that I have made across Latin America, Western Europe and the Middle East, such philosophy has held true. The common denominator among all the people who I met across the world is education. No matter background, race, or creed, the people I have met who have engaged in and completed a secular and globally-minded education have been the most successful in terms of securing themselves a comfortable and personally fulfilling lifestyle and contributing positively and productively to their own and the global society.
Entering the classroom from the “other side” as a teacher puts me in a position to put my students on this same path towards success, productivity and global citizenship. Looking at such a profession from afar, it is said to be a noble task, but after 7 months in the classroom it seems to me more daunting than anything else. That is, the modern institution that we call “school” so poorly caters to individual needs of each student that can be frustrating and extremely challenging to cultivate the aforementioned qualities in our students. While I highly value public and mandatory education and while I believe it is important for people to take part in an educational experience which exposes them to varying viewpoints and engages them in unique learning experiences, I have seen firsthand that most students’ talents are not cultivated in 68 minute-classes of 30-40 students. That is, too many students’ learning is limited by the current organization of American schools.
This makes an educator’s job all the more demanding, but at the same time, all the more significant in the lives of the children he teaches. Despite everything, the teacher and the school in which he teaches has the ability to make or break a child’s education. This is a view which I have only recently acquired because of the principles covered in Educational Psychology course. In the first few months of teaching, I was frustrated by the lack of maturity of the students and the inability of students to take responsibility for their own work. I was angry that being a teacher meant putting on a three ring circus every day in the classroom to cater to the needs of every single child sitting in the room. Why could the students not understand what I was teaching right off the bat and why could they not realize how important it was? I now realize that however overwhelming it may be, it is actually an educator’s responsibility to take all of it into account when planning and executing lessons.
While the students have the great responsibility of putting time and effort into their studies outside of class, the teacher must take charge of what happens inside of the classroom. One principle that affected my own realization of this concept is the idea that students will test behaviors to find what will and will not be accepted in the classroom. Thus, it is important that teachers provide consistency in their reactions in order to condition student behavior to that which is acceptable. Another concept which has affected my own teaching practices is the conclusions that have been drawn on the human brain and memory. This relates to my previous frustration to run a “three-ring circus” in which all students would be interested in the lesson. It is not a teacher’s job to keep students engaged so that they can simply have fun in class. Instead it is a teacher’s job to keep students interested in the subject matter because when student interest is aroused and the learning is meaningful, the student is much more likely to remember the information introduced in that lesson.
Being new to the teaching profession, I am still forming my opinions and beliefs on education. Nonetheless, I hold true that a child’s education is one of the most important aspects in determining his or her future role in society, and additionally the student’s teachers plays an integral role in the effectiveness of this education.
