Why We Teach and Good Teaching

Why do we teach? What is the difference between school “work” and student “learning”? What makes for good teaching?

Teaching is a passion, a vocation, or a desire to give back to the world. One teaches with the hope of improving society and giving children the tools to improve the future in their community. In teaching, one has the ability to reach students in such a way that they can become better citizens, form personal values, be informed and responsible, and create relationships with others through your instruction. In the video we watched on love, a man was reflecting on the situation of concentration camps and stated, the “ultimate act of love - meant saving one life.” This is how teaching should be. It is the job of teachers to attempt to find the good in each student and help them display the gifts they possess. If I, as a teacher, am able to reach just one student, then I feel like I have accomplished something special and have brought purpose to my occupation of teaching. John Dewey stated, “I believe that every teacher should realize the dignity of his calling; that he is a social servant set apart for the maintenance of proper social order and securing the right social growth.” This statement explains the reason for teaching and the influence a teacher can have on students and on society.

There is a fine line between school “work” and student “learning”. It is important that the work students do brings about learning, experience, and gives them tools they can apply to their lives. Work that is done but doesn’t expand students’ knowledge base falls under the category of “busy work”. All activities should be planned with a specific purpose in mind for improving the individual and strengthening their skills. I believe that learning done in the classroom should be applicable to daily life. Science and math methods should be applied to understanding everyday events such as weather and why certain things act the way they do, social studies should focus on helping the student become a better citizen, and English classes should focus on improving successful communication skills in both verbal and written forms. Just as David Orr stated, education is the definition of Paideia. “The goal of education is not mastery of subject matter, but of one’s person.” Work associated with learning that improves one’s self is very important. A good teacher creates activities that strengthen skills and don’t appear to be “work” in the eyes of students. It is important to encourage learning in such a way that interest and enthusiasm is maintained, destroying the mental idea of “work” and leaving true “learning” for students to experience and enjoy.

A good teacher is one who accepts all students and has a true love for each one of them, no matter what their background, attitude, or personality is like. A good teacher will find special skills that each child possesses and work to draw each skill out of the student in a way that the student learns to appreciate and use their particular gift in a way that is beneficial to society. According to Aimee Fredette, an effective “teacher will reach all children no matter what it takes.” Good teaching doesn’t necessarily mean perfect test scores and students that can compute math problems quickly and with 100 percent accuracy. A good teacher encourages learning, helps students find meaning in their lives, enables them to form new and enlightened perspectives of the world, and just as Rousseau said, helps students “learn how to live.” A good teacher is one who listens and learns from their students as much as their students are expected to learn from them. In chapter two of the text book, one student talked about a math teacher who turned around the lives of a number of students. “He made learning his subject so much fun.” He “always had a gentile smile, pleasant image, always used objects to illustrate, made the most complicated and abstruse principle seem so straightforward and obvious, and nobody failed his subject in the public state exams.” This is the definition of a good teacher.