Weblog 7: Our Future's Greatest Challenge

For this article, there are some quotes and parts that I wanted to highlight and comment on. Some of them were very interesting and shocking to me:
~~ “The importance of student perception of teacher intent is critical.” (p. 239)
This is very true but at the same time highly overlooked. Teachers need to be aware of how much their attitude reflects the students’ attitudes and efforts. If a teacher is strict and forceful but the children succeed and do well, the students may say that he/she is a hard or mean teacher but in the end they appreciate it for what they accomplished. If a teacher acts as if he/she really doesn’t care then why should he/she expect the students to care? It is the teacher’s responsibility to gain the children’s interest and conduct class in a way that they can learn.
~~The stereotyping on various ethnicities and on the girls
I was surprised at all of the different stereotypes that many teachers may have in schools. There was a different one for each race which resulted in the teacher treating a student a certain way. All students should be looked at on the same level at the beginning of the year. A teacher needs to try his/her best to look at each student regardless of his/her race and work to improve their skills.
~~“A primary source of stereotyping is often the teacher education program itself. It is in these programs that teachers learn that poor students and students of color should be expected to achieve less than their ‘mainstream’ counterparts.” (p. 241)
This is probably the most shocking quote in this whole article. I find it extremely hard to believe that any teaching program would actually promote that type of stereotyping. Who and why would they say something like that? Teachers are supposed to be open, caring, concerned, hard-working individuals who really want to impact their students’ lives. I do not understand why an education program would promote something stereotyping like that. A teacher should never be told or taught that certain students will struggle and won’t be able to learn. That is very wrong. Although the article says “few of us really believe [that all children can learn],” I do not know why anyone would become a teacher unless they really believe that.
There is a student in the class that I am observing and he is just not willing to work or learn. He just sits in his chair or looks around while the rest of the class is filling out a worksheet. The teacher tried to tell him to do his work, then after a couple times, she told him “it’s your choice.” I am really bothered by him and it really concerns me because I do not know exactly how I would handle a student like that in my class. I really want to help him but he is just so unwilling to try that it is difficult. The easy thing is to ignore him and to let him slack off but that only makes things worse. I really want to help him (and any student like that that I may have) so that he becomes a good student and sees the benefit in the education he is getting. I do not think it is that he cannot learn, I think it is more that he really does not care and is really not interested. It is the teacher’s responsibility to do something about that.