Wednesday, June 15, 2011
Isn't It My Opinion?
I am sorry to anyone if I have offended them with my views on using technology in the classroom and I never meant to make anyone angry. I just see things a certain way that might be different from the way others see them. I understand that others are just trying to help me see the situation from a different angle, and I do, but I have not changed my opinion because of that. Every teacher is entitled to teach how they want to teach. I have a certain way I want to teach. My concern is, I keep getting criticized for my own opinion. I thought the point of this blog was for me to voice my opinion but it seems like I keep getting hounded for that. Am I wrong to be posting what I am thinking? Feel free to comment and voice your own opinion on this matter!
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Part 1
ReplyDeleteNo, you are supposed to defend your position. But you also have to be able to respond to those who disagree with your opinions in a convincing way. And you have to be open to changing your mind as you attempt to change the minds of those who disagree with you.
One of the most common mistakes people make is to make claims that can't be substantiated. Claims that reach too far undermine arguments that might be good otherwise. For example, take this sentence from your post above: "Every teacher is entitled to teach how they want to teach." Now think about what you have written. Are there no standards that a principal or a school board can apply to what a teacher can teach? Are there no standards that can be applied to what materials a teacher can (or must in some cases) use in teaching? Are there not some tools that a principal or a school board can mandate? You will find that a number of groups create demands, orders, mandates that teachers are urged or are ordered to follow in all three of these areas. I know of no public or private schools which grant a teacher an entitlement "to teach how they want to teach." However, one interesting exception to my argument may be Rafe Esquith. I think you could convince me that he teaches exactly how he wants to teach with no interference from anyone. But then even he admits that he had to modify his approach to the use of movies when confronted by an angry parent about a movie her son had watched in an after school program that Rafe had established. See pp.165-166 of Teach Like Your Hair's On Fire. If, for the most part, Rafe is unusually free to teach as he wants to teach, I would ask why this might be. And to me the answer is obvious. He is called "the most interesting and influential teacher in the country" by The Washington Post; he has established his own foundation to support Room 56 outside the control of his school (Ibid., pp. 178-179); he has been made master of the British Empire; he won a $100,000 award from Oprah's Foundation; the Dali Lama awarded him the Compassion in Action Award; and he has also been awarded The National Medal of Arts by the government of the United States. All of these awards have given him the political protection he needs to "teach how [he] wants to teach".
Continued in the comment that immediately follows…
This is Part 2 of a comment that was started in the previous comment but which had to be broken into two sections because of Blogger's restrictions on the length of a comment. Please read Part 1 before reading this comment.
ReplyDeleteYou will find, when you become a teacher, that it is quite likely that you will NOT be able to teach the way you want to teach. It will help if you have clear ideas about how you want to teach and also have evidence that your methods work better than other methods. Most often we do not have that evidence. We merely have opinions. Sometimes those opinions are based on personal experiences, sometimes on what we learn in school, sometimes as a result of what experiences we actually encounter in teaching. I am constantly changing my approach to teaching because I am constantly learning new things about what works, when it works, and for whom it works. But I am also constrained in how I teach by many of the factors I have discussed above, not to mention the availability of resources to teach with the best tools possible. So my suggestion is this: be open to how you think instruction can best be done and be ready to teach in ways other than you want to teach even though you may think you have the answers. You will have political and institutional constraints on what you can and cannot do (unless you get as famous as Rafe Esquith). You will have fiscal constraints. You will have community and cultural restraints. And if you have an open mind you will find that your "answers" change. And, in addition, your answers may not have been the best "answers" in the first place. To succeed you will have to be open to the possibility that you are wrong. And you must always be learning.
Keep expressing your opinions. Make the strongest possible arguments for them. But listen and think as well. You will learn from both activities: stating you case; and listening and learning from the arguments of others.