Blog Assignment 10

Do You Teach or Do You Educate?

In this short movie, Joshua B. Bloom, distinguishes the difference between teaching and educating. He defines teaching as showing or explaining how to do something, presenting something as a fact, giving information about something, causing someone to learn something and motivating someone by example or punishment to do or not to do something. Mr. Bloom defines an educator as someone who illuminates and inspires others. He also describes them as intellectuals, mentors, guides, advisors and moral people who show the way to others.

In EDM 310, I have become so much more excited to teach than I ever was before. I believe that this excitement comes from the realization that I can educate rather than just teach. I have been given the resources I can use to educate my students along with directions and many examples on how to use them. I intend to use Skype, Podcasts, Youtube, Blogs, the internet and my SmartBoard to keep my students engaged and excited to learn. I believe that in the elementary grades, educators begin to develop within their students a foundation of either excitement or fear and loathing of learning. I remember those educators that made me love coming to class to read, research, think and work. They made learning exciting and fun. I also remember (not by name) those teachers whose class I dreaded to attend. One quarter, I had a teacher that sat at the projector and had us copy math problems in our notebooks every day during class, it was hard to even stay awake so being engaged was out of the question.

I intend to help build a foundation based on the desire and excitement to know more within my students by incorporating the media that I mentioned earlier within this paragraph. I will also lead my students by exemplifying the same excitement and desire that I wish for them. I will not just give them the information that they need to know but I will guide them in the direction of where the information is located, just as Dr. Strange has done for me. My students will always be encouraged to ask questions and know that their ideas are welcome. Within my students, I want to develop not only the desire learn but the capability to teach themselves as well.








Don't Let Them Take The Pencils Home!

In this post, Tom Johnson addresses the ways that our students'learning potential can be limited by fear and ignorance of administrators, parents and teachers. In this post, what is limiting their potential to learn is Gertrude's focus on the problems instead of the benefits created by the students taking pencils home.I found this post to be clever and humorous but also sad because it addresses real issues that are present in today's education system. The cleverness of this post lies in the fact that pencils can be replace with almost any learning source such as: books, computers, games to name a few, and still be relevant.

One reason Gertrude is opposed to students taking pencils home because of an article stating that students who use pencils at home score less on standardized tests. Another reason is that she cannot see how the students can be held accountable for how they use the pencils at home. She believes that they will use them to play "sick and twisted" games like Hangman. Gertrude is so focused on the possible problems that she cannot or will not entertain the thought of the benefits that Mr. Johnson is explaining. This is unfortunate for the students in Mr. Johnson's class because that is one less learning resource that they can benefit from, which is a disadvantage when compared with students from other schools who are allowed to take pencils home. I really appreciate Mr. Johnson's concern for the lack of interest placed in teaching the students in low income areas about the educational use of pencils at home rather than just using them for entertainment.

Mr. Johnson seems to already have anticipated some of the problems with taking pencils home and taken the necessary precautions such as: having parents sign waivers, talked to parents and students to explain the benefits of using pencils at home, and he has developed a program to teach the parents the same skills that the students will learn which encourages the students to learn and helps the community by educating the entire household. Mr. Johnson's view on how to address problems that may arise in educating students is to anticipate and be prepared with solutions.To take the opportunity to learn from them, in my opinion is negligence because they deserve and it is our duty as educators to provide them with the best education that we can and we should not be driven by fear or close-mindedness because they suffer in the end.