Blog #10

Do You Teach or Do You Educate:

In Mr. Bloom’s short video he distinguishes the difference between teaching and educating. In his movie he defines an educator as someone who has the power to inspire drive people. A good educator must have good leadership qualities to make people aspire to be as motivated and driven to reach their goals much like you did. On the other hand he defines a teacher as one who just throws facts and information out in hopes that the listener soaks up as much as they can.

Of course everyone who is becoming a teacher wants to strive to become a good educator. We have all sat in a class at one point and found ourselves paying attention and actively participating in debates and talks just because we wanted to. When you find yourself in these situations pay attention to that teacher's teaching style because they are in fact doing their job to their potential of being a good educator. We have also all been in classrooms purely based on non enthusiastic lectures and find ourselves staring at the clock rather than attempting to indulge in the lesson just because of the torture of listening. Even at the time we tell ourselves that there is no way that we will end up like that so we need to make sure we retain our old motivation and strive to do our best.

Don’t Let Them Take The Pencils Home:

Tom Johnson made this post to educate us to not hinder our students learning potentials. Parents, teachers, and administrators alike can all put fear in a child that distracts them from their natural ability to learn. Johnson’s post also shows how a teacher, Gertrude, thinks that letting students take pencils will cause more problems than benefits. She thinks that the students will just use the pencils for unsuitable games or not at all. By Gertrude so focused on problems possible related to letting the students take the pencils home she is creating a problem herself. She is limiting the resources her students have which is limiting their potential. If you spend all of your time focusing on the bad you make it hard to notice all the good that comes from situations. Perhaps some of her students would maximize their potential with the opportunity.

The key to limiting problems is to anticipate them so you can put solutions out in advance. Addressing problems will just be part of being a teacher. So a good educator will show the guidelines and benefits to students before allowing students to do something. In other words just pave the road to allow students to correctly achieve their goals.