I never wanted to be a teacher.
With this class, it confirmed that feeling that I do not want to be a teacher due to some of the responsibilities that these men and women hold for shaping the future generation into well-rounded members of society. However, it also confirmed that there is, in fact, a future for the progression of teaching coming for those that feel that the current educational practices are still behind the curve of societal needs for workers. From my visits to the classroom and seeing some of the practices already implemented that I would have loved to had in my time in high school, such as the usage of technology, an open-floor like class, and things being nearly 100% paperless during our visits through the use of Google Classroom, it seemed like these progressions are fitting in perfectly in the schools. The students looked happy and were having as much fun as the teacher was when they were roleplaying their therapy sessions or participating in open discussions.
However, there were still a few things that I didn’t agree with throughout the course. One of these such things was the calling back to the ideas of John Dewey for the foundations of what we were going to be doing at the beginning of the semester. Yes, he is the father of public education, but shouldn’t we have been focusing on ideas from someone that setting the framework for the induction of modern educational practices, such as EL and PBL? Looking at these things, it allowed for me to go out and find where there needed to be change in our current educational system (in which my state still is with Common Core) and see where it fits into everything that students need to learn to be successful.
Mason,
I wanted to extend a longer response to your comment about John, rather than “George” Dewey.
It’s good to always question the resources you are given in any learning opportunity, but it’s also worth grappling with the ideas before discounting their use in educational movements. We read John Dewey not just because he was a founding father of education, but because without his sense of democratic education, project-based learning wouldn’t exist in its modern form. His progressive school on Chicago’s Southside still carries on as one of the top preparatory schools in Chicago, and many teachers still depend on his understanding of hands on, experiential learning, of what it means to undergo something and simultaneously, impact that experience with creative impulses-which is what you and Ron did. Dewey was modern in his day about giving students ownership, and his progressive ideas are still at the very roots of contemporary, award-winning PBL classrooms, including most of the ideas in Boss’s teaching manual. What is old can be new. Kurt Hahn’s principles for EL in its modern form align well, reminding us that despite changes in technology, there are still social principles that are necessary to develop a constructive learning culture. This experiential culture is attainable, as Mr. Simms hopes, despite equal access to materials and tools, and despite gaps in learner achievement. MAJ Hodde