A person's identity is not something that they are necessarily born with. Aside from superficial characteristics--i.e. nationality, race, etc.--identity is the result of a compilation of life events. In short, consider an identity to be the blank slab of stone and life to be the chisel that shapes it. With that said, every experience shapes your proverbial slate to some extent. My tutoring experiences shaped me in several ways.
As an educator, this experience has reiterated two main concepts for me: patience and faith. In my third grade classroom, I was assigned to work with three students regularly: Adam, Olivia, and Kaitlin. Upon receiving my assignment, I was informed that Olivia and Kaitlin were behind in math and Adam was seriously struggling as well. Referring to Adam, my teacher said, "He just doesn't seem to get it". So as I headed over to work with my new student group for the first time, I expected to have a significant amount of difficulty getting these new mathematical concepts to stick with them (especially Adam). However, the student response was quite the opposite.
Throughout further visits to the classroom, I began to realize that it was not necessarily that my students did not understand the material, it was that they were being handicapped by other factors. For example--and I believe I have noted this in a previous blog--as the teacher lectured, my students had a large amount of trouble keeping up with the note-taking and were concentrating more on how the spell the word "mathematical" or "identity" than on the actual content that was being taught. Therefore, their shortcomings in a completely separate subject were actually the source of their issues in mathematics. As an educator, you cannot simply categorize students based on sheer performance because performance can be impacted by and result from any number of extenuating factors. Most of these factors, by the way, are not as simple as lack of intelligence, lack of desire to learn, or desire to cause trouble.
Simultaneously, though, you must have the patience to seek out these factors. Most of them are not going to simply present themselves on a silver platter. It took me at least five visits to notice that this was a problem for them, and I was fortunate enough to be able to only have the responsibility of three students. In a real world situation, I may be responsible for the education of twenty times that amount.
In Jonathan Kozol's lecture at the Roberts Auditorium, he uttered one sentence that especially caught my attention, "Always believe in your students". Everyone, for my entire life, has always scolded me for being a perfectionist because perfection isn't something you can attain. I have been told that I "can't help everybody" and that "not everybody can be helped". I disagree. Perfection is a subjective term, it means something different to everyone. So who is to say that you cannot attain state of being that has no set definition? Regardless, even if perfection is never actually reached, it is always something to pursue. My job from now on is to believe in my students and help them pursue their own perfection, have faith in their abilities, and patiently wait, hoping that what I have done has set them on the path that will lead them to discover their own identity, as I have begun to discover mine.
The part of your blog that I felt was most intriguing was the fact that students were getting held back in a math class not because the mathematics that were too challenging, but the fact that they did not have the spelling skills to spell words required to complete the lesson. I myself am going to be a math teacher, and although I often consider effective ways to teach certain material, I also have to consider the scenario where a student is not up to speed on his reading, spelling or comprehension. This reminded me of The Silenced Dialogue, written by Lisa Delpit. It is within this article where Delpit acknowledges that students come from all different backgrounds, and it is an educators task to ensure that they understand the material. Although in her article, Delpit concentrates the differences between white educators and minority students, these principles can be applied to any and every group, whether it is economically privileged, racial, cultural or gender. If the students have certain learning disadvantages in relation to the other students in the classroom, and we must find a way to account for these students. The teacher should not get so discouraged that Adam is not learning the material, she should think of a different, possibly more effective way of accommodating for this student.
ReplyDeleteThe other part of your blog that I you and I strongly agree on is the aspect of perfection, and whether it is something that we never can truly obtain, but if we continue to pursue this "unreachable" goal then we will be better people, and better teachers for it. I myself play golf and one of the most important things about golf is understanding that a perfect round of golf is impossible, but if you constantly strive to try to play a perfect round, practice and put your time in, your scores will improve.
(By the way, I just wrote down that quote on the top of your page)
haha thanks luke, I love that quote.
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