Fourth Dispositional Blog: FINLAND vs. AMERICA

Dear Blog Reader, 

Hello.  Instead of talking about Passion like Professor Langholz suggested, I chose to talk about something different.  Recently, I came across a video explaining why Finland schools rock compared to the ones in America; I would like to take this opportunity to inform you about it as well.  In conclusion, do not be alarmed that this blog has nothing to do with passion.  

sincerely,
Matthew Dalthorp

I saw this video the other day; it was really interesting.  Pretty much, the video talks about the Finish school system as it follows this one family's kids for a day.  Here it is:

 

In conclusion, Finland schools are all about two things:  Relaxation and trust. 

Students are encouraged to relax; they take off their shoes, call their teacher by his/her first name, and usually have the same teacher their entire career.  Furthermore, there are more than one teacher in a classroom, allowing children to get more help.  As they said in the video, "learning is more of a team game; the best and worst pupils in any subject are taught together."

Trust.  The teachers trust the students; they show this trust by allowing students to go on cross-country ski trips...without adult supervision.  Furthermore, politicians stay out of the way.  They trust the principal and know that he/she will get results their own way.  They don't need to be told how to do their job.  Autonomy. 

Finish students spend the least amount of time in a classroom.  Yet they yield the best results.  Why?  Probably because they enjoy being there.  Because going to school isn't something that they dread - its something that they enjoy.  Autonomy.  Intrinsic learning.  All that jazz. 

I just don't get why the United States of America can't be more like this.  Clearly what Finland is doing is working.  At the end of the video, a person mentions that Finland - unlike America - is homogeneous, allowing them to do things differently because they don't have to deal with poverty and ESL students.  Although I agree that Finland does not have these problems to worry about, I still don't see any reason as to why American schools cannot learn something from them.  Schools work better when students relax and have fun; they perform better when government doesn't create requirements; they educate better when they're not cooped up in a classroom all day. 

I heard something that I think fits here nicely.  If you take a doctor from 100 years ago and put him in today's ER room, he would be completely lost and wouldn't know what to do.  If you take a teacher from 100 years ago, however, and put them in today's classroom, they don't skip a beat.  American schools haven't changed much in the last century.  It isn't any wonder that we're getting passed in education scores by other countries - they've changed their education system to go with the times.  Why can't America do the same...?

Finland: 1
America: 0

Third Dispositional Blog: AUTHENTICITY

How do you know where your limits are for expressing authenticity?  How can students tell if a teacher is not authentic?  What are the ramifications for learning if a teacher is seen as a 'fake' or not authentic with students?

Teachers who are fake - who try to 'wing' it - are the worst.  That's one of my pet peeves about certain  teachers - those who know that what they are teaching the student does not matter, and yet try to spin this creative, inspiring tale of how their material will change our lives.  It won't change our lives...unless we're learning first aid in health class. 

Students should be able to ask the question, "Why are we learning this? How is this going to better help my life?" and get a legit answer.  I remember several times when I was making my way through secondary education in which classmates would ask such questions; and instead of getting a worthy response - or even an attempt to explain why or how - the students were told just to be quiet and do their work.  How is this encouraging the student?  How is this motivating?  Who hears the response, "dont worry about it...just do your homework" and wants to do their work?  No one.

I feel like a lot of times in these blogs I make my former teachers seem like the bad guys.  They're not really; i just feel like some of them could have tried harder in trying to motivate me in doing my homework.  The response of 'do your work' or 'this will help you in the future because you'll learn that not everything you have to do is something you'll like' simply does not work. 

Students, I believe, want to know the answers to questions concerning how today's homework will make tomorrow's task easier.  Daniel Pink discusses this problem in his book Drive.  He said that when giving teachers are giving homework to their students, they must do so in a way where the students have both autonomy and purpose.  He even listed off a checklist for the teachers; they are suppose to ask themselves these questions before handing out assignments:

• Am I offering students any autonomy over how and when to do this work?
• Does this assignment promote mastery by offering a novel, engaging task (as opposed to rote reformulation of something already covered in class)
• Do my students understand the purpose of this assignment?  That is, can they see how doing this addtional activity at home contributes to the larger enterprise in wich the calss is engaged?

The homework must have purpose; teachers must be able to answer how this is relevant, how this will help down the road.  If they cannot answer those things, something must be changed.  And that doesnt mean spin off some fantasy tale about how this would help in the future - that means changing the lesson plan.  Students can detect spun fables of hopeless purpose like sharks can detect blood in water.  And when they sense a lie, they don't want to do the homework.  They start to think the teacher is fake.  And students hate teachers who are fake.

Second Dispostional Blog: COMPASSION

When did the compassion of a teacher make a difference in your life or in the life of your classmate?

I think of compassionate teachers, and I think of those found in movies like, "Freedom Diaries."  Teachers who went so far beyond the call and duty of their job that they would take up two, three jobs to pay for new books for the students to read.  Ones that would care for their students so much that they would drive them home after school because they lived so far away.

Alas, such teachers don't usually happen; I have to seek less noticeable examples of compassion from my teachers. 

When I think of a time when one of my teachers has been compassionate, I think of my English teacher in high school.  She was a rather young teacher - less than ten years old than the students she was teaching.  What made her so compassionate, though, was her ability to connect with her students and become more of a friend and mentor to them.  Being so young, my English teacher knew what conflits high school teenagers were facing; she graduated from the same school and thus knew which teachers were liked or disliked and why.  She gave good advice for any situation, whether it'd be a question about grammar or about real life conflicts.

And she worked so hard at her job, too.  She was involved in everything - she worked at sport activities, running the scoreboard for both basketball and volleyball; she helped with the drama team; she was one of the coaches for the speech team; she helped with drama; she accompanied the choir during concerts.  The list goes on.  She helped out everywhere. 

As a student, you can't help but come to appreciate such a teacher.  Her care for her students was something that was noticable; her compassion for her job was something that was inspiring.  In conclusion, by her endless efforts and her unending show of compassion, she made school a better place.  She has made an impact on my life simply because I enjoyed being in her classroom, trying to better my writing skills.  Without such a teacher, who knows how much I - and other students in her classes - would have enjoyed school. 

That is compassion.  When the care you show your kids change their attitude on school. 

First Dispositonal Blog: RESPECT

How do you define respect?  How does it look in the classroom?  What is the impact of respect or lack of respect in the classrooms?  How is respect best established in a classroom environment?

I define respect as a feeling students have for a teacher when they sense that the teacher knows what he is doing and has the students' well-being in mind; respect is something that is earned, not something that is forced upon people.  Respect, in my opinion, is one essential building block for excellent teachers simply because I feel like students are more drawn in by someone who they respect; they are more eager to listen and learn when someone who they respect is teaching, rather than the alternative teacher whom they could care less about.

When I made my way past middle school and through high school, I had several teachers on whom I respected and several whom I didn't.  Those who I did respect, I did because of three reasons:

1. How they dealt with obnoxious students
2. Their professionalism while still being 'down to earth'
3. Their obvious caring attitude towards both their job and their students

Clearly, when you're teaching about an abstract concept to middle and high school students who think its funny to be obnoxious and class, the ability to control the situation is of the utmost importance.  My seventh grade geography teacher, Mr. Sullivan, is the perfect example of this.  I remember times in his class in which 'class clowns' would try making a silly comment and make the class laugh - a comment that would obviously disrupt class.  However, when such comments were made, Mr. Sullivan would find a way to turn the attention around and make the 'class clown' the joke instead of his/her comment.  This was by no means degrading or anything, Mr. Sullivan would simply sarcastically congratulate the student for successfully disrupting class.  By the end of his sarcastic reply, Mr. Sullivan usually had the student wishing he/she had never made the comment in the first place - I know because I was on more than one occasion said student.  The masterfully way Mr. Sullivan defused the situation and prevented further remarks was something that I have always looked up to in awe. 

On the other side of the spectrum, I have had teachers who had no control of their classroom.  One such teacher was my Modern Literature class.  We read books in class such as F. Scott Fitzgerald's 'The Great Gatsby,' Steinbecks' 'Of Mice and Men,' and 'Grapes of Wrath.'  The teacher of this class had no control over her students, so much so that to put it bluntly, the class was a joke.  We listened to the books on tape; students took naps; everyone copied everyone's homework.  As the teacher walked in on the last day of class, nearly every boy (roughly half the class) stood on his chair and started chanting 'Oh captain, my captain!' as the rest of the class howled with laughter.  The teacher had to practically beg for students to get down - a process would took roughly fifteen minutes.  Such inability does not deserve respect.

Secondly, respect is earned in the classroom by the teacher's ability to teach the class in a professional manner, but also in a way that is 'cool.'  The more teachers know about their material, the better.  I know for me personally, when a teacher is able to make me laugh, I like him more.  The more I like my teacher, the more likely and eager I am to listen and learn from him.  Although I would argue teachers are more effective when they are indeed funny and more 'down to earth', there is a fine line teachers have to walk.  Yes, they should be funny and down to earth, but above all, they should be professional.  I had one teacher who was a hoot; he was very funny indeed.  But looking back on his AP US History class, I find myself wondering how effective his own teaching methods were.  There were several days in which we just talked about the news.  But did I learn much from these?  I have begun to question that.  Was it that, being an AP class, he wanted us to teach the material ourselves?  Was it that, because it was his last year of teaching before he retired, his enthusiasm for teaching had faded?  I don't know.  All I know is that although he was funny and entertaining, he lacked in teaching the actual material.

Lastly, those teachers who genuinely show that they care about the student inside and outside the classroom are teachers who - in my opinion - are the most respected.  When I did my Education 185 class last J-Term, I had the opportunity to work with one of the best teachers in the Crestwood School District; her name was Mrs. Balk.  It wasn't that her teaching methods were substantially better than those of other teachers.  She wasn't more prepared than other teachers or anything.  What made her a good teacher was her eagerness to learn about her students and their activities outside the classroom.  She wished the basketball players good luck; she talked about cheers with the cheerleaders; she made an effort to get to know each and every one of her kids.  This made the students adore her.  Just in the few weeks that I was in her class, I could see the love and affection that was being given and received by Mrs. Balk and her students. 

That is what respect look like in a classroom.  It is the love and affection students give to the teacher; it is their undivided attention students show when the teacher is lecturing; it is the teacher's ability to defuse a situation while preventing future disruptions.  When students begin to respect their teacher for these reasons, they begin to pay attention more in the classroom, and thus learn more.  Students pay more attention in the classroom and fully engage in class discussions.  What happens more often in reality, however, is that teachers who are inexperienced try to gain respect by scare tactics.  They think that they can force respect from the students.  There is not a better example of this than my band teacher.  As noted earlier, my band teacher would often burst out in anger and make this long lecture about how the students should respect him and his authority.  Once, he got so angry, he knocked over a stand.  More often than not, this tactic made the situation worse, as students had new material to make fun of the teacher; it practically became a game to them. 

I remember a quote that I think fits here nicely.  Its by President Lincoln; he says, "Whatever you are, be a good one."  If we are teachers and want to be teachers, than we must aspire to be good ones; we must want to get to know our students on more than just a teacher-student relationship; we must be professional, not using scare tactics to submit students into obedience; we must want to make an impact on their lives for the better.  If teachers inspire to be good teachers, than the students will notice.  Therefore, it is my firm belief that teachers who really want to be teachers - who really want to make a difference and have an impact on their students' lives - will earn respect from their students.