1. The video
Do You Teach or Do You Educate? does a good job of explaining the difference between a teacher and an educator. According to this video, a teacher just shows or explains how to do something, gives information or instructs, and causes someone to learn or understand something. An educator is someone who gives intellectual, moral, and spiritual instruction. They are a mentor and a guide. I found this quote in the video very inspiring: "Education makes a people easy to lead, but difficult to drive; easy to govern, but impossible to enslave." from Peter Brougham.
I intend to educate rather than teach by being everything a student needs. I will guide them to a place they feel comfortable in the world. I will be a mentor to them by giving them advice on how to be themselves and to do the right thing in any situation. This quote by Martin Luther King is true in every way: "Intelligence plus character ... that is the goal of true education."
2. In the blog post
Don't Let Them Take Pencils Home, Mr. Spencer tells his dialog between him and the "School Curriculum Instructional Interventionist Academic Specialist" about why students shouldn't take pencils home. Her reasoning is that it results in lower test scores. Mr. Spencer retaliates this statement by saying that the results were yielded from only bubble –in multiple choice tests. This doesn’t really measure authentic learning. They argue back and forth about who is right, and in the end Mr. Spencer comes on top by saying he has talked to the students and their parents about using effective studying strategies at home with paper and pencil. These strategies are made fun or interesting for the students so they will want to do them.
I really like the message of this blog post. It shows that some teachers care about the students actually learning and not just about the test scores. Of course if students truly learn, their test scores should reflect that level of academic achievement. Mr. Spencer took what he knew about his students and their parents and made something useful for them to make studying more enjoyable and easier to do. Just because students know how to use pencils for fun and games doesn’t necessarily mean they can’t have fun and learn at the same time. I really enjoyed this post. I learning a lifelong message from it: don’t underestimate the power of an overlooked item.
Hello Carly,
ReplyDeleteGreat news! Your title modifier and links are in good working order. Kudos for being so careful and thorough.
Teaching vs. educating seemed to be a grey area to me at first. I considered myself to be able to be both. Certainly there is room for both. The educator, as you put it, is more mentor and guide than simply a 'cause' of an effect. Your 'educator' is a more emotionally connected super teacher! As we all should strive to be.
Did you connect the metaphorical pencil in Mr. Spencer's post to the use of computers in today's classrooms? Both are toys in one respect and powerful tools when placed in the right hands. Like you said, involving parents with the students activities is not only useful but a good use of resources. Tom was an educator not simply a teacher. We have our work cut out for us, similar to Tom, once we have our own classrooms and start using technology. A positive change starts with open minded teachers such as yourself.
I believe replacing ..retaliates.. in the third sentence of the second post with ..responds.. would make this sentence grammatically correct. Also ..him.. two sentences prior would flow best as ..himself.
This is a nice thoughtful post. Best of luck with the rest of the semester.
Laura Holifield