Those who know me well are probably aware (or could guess) that I have deep misgivings about the preparation given to teachers through undergraduate and graduate education classes. I watched my mother jumped through many hoops in her efforts to return to teaching later in life. From what I gathered of her commentary, the classes she was forced to take had little bearing on the realities of the classroom. Beyond that, they even seemed to represent a wisdom about the human person, and especially the child, that was just plain wrong. My wife Ally is now going through a similar process to earn her master's degree in teaching, and I must say that my confidence in our educational elites is at an all-time low. Please don't misunderstand me; my problem is not with the students/future teachers so much as it is with the instructors of these classes. One example of the disappointing nature of educational studies is the fact that in at least half, if not three quarters, of Ally's classes she has been taught and retaught APA style (this after having herself taught APA style to college students, but that is another story).
Another example comes from an online class session I happened to overhear the other night. The instructor made the comment that "negative encouragement has never motivated a child." In other words, children who do wrong will not be motivated to do right by you telling them that they have done wrong. The only thing that will motivate a child (and in this the instructor suggests children are exactly like dogs) is positive reinforcement. One example she presented was that when a child behaves in a disruptive manner two days in a row, the teacher is to praise the child for being slightly less disruptive on the second day.
I don't know what your reaction is to this, but here is mine: HA!
The instructor made another observation that I found very compelling, however. She said that teachers should never praise the student personally, but only the student's actions. To illustrate: say "what you did was very good," not "you are good for doing that." Presumably the idea here is that what we want from students is a certain kind of behavior, and so we must focus our comments on behavior rather than identity.
You have heard the adage many times, I am sure: "love the sinner; hate the sin." This makes complete sense to me in that human beings and their actions are separable. If every person is a sinner, that does not mean we would also say that every person is, in an ultimate sense, evil. Is the same true with regard to goodness? I am actually inclined to agree. Just because we do good things, we are not able to therefore say that we are ultimately good. Human beings don't work that way. In this life we always have the possibility of turning away from evil and toward good, and vice versa.
On the other hand, orthodox Christian teaching informs us that "it is appointed that human beings die once, and after this the judgment." We have many, many chances within this one chance which is life. Eventually life will end and it will be up to God to decide how to judge our use of these sub-chances.
I honestly do not know whether I think the education instructor's advice would be successful in the classroom. I would say that it is good for each of us to remember that our actions and choices in this life are what will ultimately define us. Times in the calendar such as Advent are given to us by the Church to help remind us of our responsibility to define ourselves in accordance with the will of God. As we wait and prepare for the Christ child to be born, let us strive to do so with a more accurate view of who and what we are by having a more accurate view of exactly what we are choosing to do. Let us at least behave as if our actions are what define us as either good or evil, and we will be living out the gift of humility.
No comments:
Post a Comment