Education

This post was inspired by a long conversation I had with my neighbor last night. She encouraged me to share my ideas and perspective on education, after I took an introductory education course this past semester at college. As someone who has received disability related accommodations throughout my school career, I'm the last one to advocate "special treatment" on the basis of disability. I feel, however, that a teacher's responsibility is to accommodate every student within reason. I know from personal experience that the consequences of a teacher's pushing a student too far beyond his or her academic, physical, and emotional capabilities may be detrimental to the student's academic career and self esteem. I do understand that a teacher would want to challenge his or her students and not "let them off easy," but I entreat all teachers to remain approachable. Never let students feel afraid to ask you for something they need. For a teacher, it is so important to maintain a certain level of connection and understanding with students. I know that it's a delicate balance, given the culture and legalies surrounding "connection" with a student. Please, try your best, teachers. It is equally important to maintain reasonable expectations of students. Especially at a college level, it is important to assume that at least the majority of the students have done the assignment and want to share their findings with their classmates and teacher. I feel that, instead of "spoon-feeding" information to students in the form of a review or lecture, teachers should encourage students to share their thoughts and opinions. Teachers and other students ought to try to accept and learn from these ideas. Conversely, I feel that teachers should not make their expectations of students so high that courses become daunting, fatiguing or nearly impossible. Learning should be a positive continuous experience, not a race to the top. Try as one may, grading is not objective, and standards created by the government in an effort to "mainstream" more students are often less than effective because in my opinion, there is no "mainstream." Instead, each student has a unique range of capabilities, which should always be taken into consideration. I know that a traditional grading system with letter grades or percentages can often cause undue amounts of stress for students, as they overemphasize the importance of getting high grades or even get into a grade competition with other students. Such pressure from a stringent grading system could result in low self esteem or lack of motivation for academic achievement. I propose as an alternative, an evaluation system, mostly based on essay assignments with exemplars from the teacher. This would entail the creation a model by the teacher of each assignment, and the subsequent evaluation with written comments of each student's work, based on how it fits the model, which the teacher presents. Additionally, I would suggest "grades" of "Excellent," "Good,""Satisfactory," and "Poor," as these less are less exacting and definitive than letter grades, percentages, or the possibility of failure. Honestly, it is mainly in academics that we have the possibility of failing exams and classes. In most of the rest of life, there are no failures, but only mistakes various sizes, which may have diverse consequences. I think school should reflect real life, as much as possible. Moreover, it is important for teachers to tell their students that they understand that the assignments are challenging, and that therefore, no student is expected to produce "Excellent" work right away. Each student should have this as an ultimate goal. It is equally as important to remember, however, that even if a student doesn't achieve "academic excellence," that is alright too, as long as each student and teacher continuously tries his or her own personal best to make that happen.