A Challenge to Be

I have a professor in the eduction department that always tells us to have our students become, rather than just do a subject area. She tells us to have students be scientists if you are teaching science, to be mathematicians in math, and in English to be writers and critical readers. In my opinion this is a good way for students to learn a subject. This approach teaches children to find passion in a subject and to make connections; however, I don't think my main goal with teaching is to create writers, but to create real thinking feeling people in the classroom. Don't get me wrong, I am a proponent of reading and writing, but I would rather have a student discover something vital about themselves or the world around them than have them remember how to use a semi-colon correctly.

Often times in the public eduction system I see tests being administered and all I can think is that we are creating robots. We put information into these students and expect them to reproduce it. I don't want to create robots, the Apple store is doing enough of that on its' own. I want to create humans: critical thinking, question asking, ever wondering, discovering humans.

Sometimes I think we (teachers) forget that students still have life and they have real things to deal with. This came abruptly to my view as I was observing in a Psychology class for my clinical hours. In the course of two class periods during an opener entitled "Free Advice Friday" we discussed what one would do when faced with a degenerative hip disorder as an athlete. We also talked about how one might confront a friend who might be causing themselves bodily harm (also known as cutting). This made me wonder how we (again as teachers) are preparing students to cope with life, instead of just memorizing the parts of the brain. These instances, along with other conversations and thoughts lead me to believe that in my classroom I want to create people who can discover and think, be compassionate and self aware, as well as see beyond themselves to look through another's eyes. If they happen to learn how to properly use a semi-colon, that'd be cool too.