Louis,
There are times that I wonder if you really read things before you respond or whether you just take another opportunity to create a "Random Thoughts"
On 22 Oct, 2004, at 13:30, louis schmier wrote:
Bob, were things to be that simple. I've been teaching since 1963 and amI never said nor implied that I wasn't still enthusiastic about teaching. Most recently in my career of teaching and doing private practice as a psychotherapist, I gave up a position as a therapist in which I earned $70K plus to take a full-time lecturer position at half that salary. Why? because I like teaching and I know I have had an effect on many of my students -- I just don't brag about them on the internet.
enthusiastically "still in the game." I disagree with you on several
points.
With your permission, I'd like state my position in the form ofI never claimed that there was a "golden age" of learning for learning sake in the history of the US, I simply said that the Ivies, select liberal arts colleges, and the major research universities have attracted, and continue to attract the majority of the most highly qualified students. I also did not state, nor did I imply, that there are not a lot of very good students who, because of family values or some other reasons that I don't always understand, who attend schools at the lower level. I know because I have quite a few in my classes right now and even though most of my teaching time has been spent at the second and third tier schools, I have a pretty good record of students going on to graduate school and to further successful careers as psychologists.
some questions. First, after the Agora and Stoa poecile, when was this
golden age of learning for learning sake, when students were paragons of
intellectual virtue?
Second, sure the educational scene has changed.Yadda, yadda, yadda. I never denegrated the educational system, nor did I suggest that there haven't been great moments in which the educational system has opened opportunities for many people who may never have gone to college. When I went back to college after flunking out in my freshman year, working for a year in a glass factory, and spending 5 years of my life serving in the US Navy as a hospital corpsman during the Vietnam Era, I got a bachelor's and master's degree primarily because I had my education paid for by the Veterans Administration. I am aware enough of history to understand that the cry of how our children were going to hell in a hand-basket goes as far back to at least Aristophenes and his play, The Clouds. In fact, when I left my first full-time teaching position I told one of my office mates who had come there at the same time as I and who complained continually that our students were second or third rate (mind now that within a two year period of time, at least 6 of my advisees had been admitted to quality graduate programs including the University of Virginia, Purdue University, Rice University, and others) that I would bet that he would teach at Radford until he died or retired, whichever came first. Last May I collected the $20 that I bet him when he retired from Radford after 34 years.
Bare-footed faculty in sackcloth, holding up placards and hurling warnings
that education is going to hell and damning hellish students for putting
poor ole us innocent and struggling academics through hell when the
land-grant and A & T colleges for form in the 19th century, when they opened
the Ivory Tower to children of foreign-born immigrants, when women were
given access to a higher education, when the G.I. Bill gave WW II veterans
access to an education, when the campuses were racially integrated. My
question is, when haven't we had a chorus of "it isn't what it used to be,"
"students aren't what they used to be," "they aren't as serious as they used
to be," "they don't want to work hard," "all they are interested in is
getting a job," "they're so materialistic," "all they want is to get a
higher salary," "they always have excuses," "they don't care about
intellectual growth," "they're so apathetic," "they don't want to study,"
"they're so irresponsible," "they don't have the right priorities," "they're
so disrespectful," "they're so....."
I for one have always adapted my methods to fit the learning styles of the people I have in my classes. I've even gone to some hybrid courses in which students do half the course work in class and half on computer, and have even taught courses totally online. Now I know that you probably see that as heresy because I don't have the face to face contact with those students, but actually, I have quite a correspondence with a number of those students as well as some students I had in class 30 years ago.Third, why is it that having learned some much about learning over the past decades that so many of us have changed our ways, methods, and attitudes so little?
I don't have an answer to that question, Louis. I don't know why so many of my colleagues do that. I just know that I have changed my way of thinking more than John Kerry (for whom I am going to vote, by the way) because I believe that (unlike our current president) it is better to learn new ways based on new information rather than believe that my way has been ordained by God.Fourth, why is it that so many of us equate a change in our thinking and doing with being kindergartenish, highschoolish, watering down, dumbing down, etc?
Fourth, IWell, actually, if you are keeping count, this is Fifth, not Fourth. My area of research is in self-concept and self-esteem and in my research, I have found that people gain the most self esteem when they are encouraged to stretch themselves, to accept tasks that they aren't sure that they can accomplish (but I am sure they can), to experience real achievement in their academic pursuits, and to receive genuine positive reinforcement for accomplishing real tasks. Complimenting kids for anything they do (e.g., for effort which was discussed earlier on this list) is the sure way to guarantee a future full of frustrations for kids.
agree with Annette about the relationship between self-esteem,
self-confidence, and achievement. The literature I've been reading doesn't
make it quite so linear.
Louis, I teach people at the undergraduate and graduate level to learn to become counselors and therapists. I teach empathy from the very beginning and most of them whom I have had in class previously make comments about how they see the connection between what I am teaching them about listening and using empathy to understand what that individual client is experiencing in the world to how I treated them, and all of my other students in my classes. I just don't use Tootsie Pops.Finally, I assert that the most powerful a teacher has at his/her disposal is empathy.
Make it a good --Louis--
Every good day I have in my life I have made for myself. The same goes for the bad days I have had. When I am happy and successful I don't point to the sky to thank some supreme being. When I am miserable and fail at something I have done I don't point at the sky to curse some supreme being. I point to myself for the consequences of everything I do because I know I am responsible for it -- and that is one of the main lessons I try to instill in my students.
As I have said before, Most of my days have been good.
Bob Dr. Bob Wildlbood Lecturer in Psychology Indiana University Kokomo Kokomo, IN 56904-9003 [EMAIL PROTECTED] [EMAIL PROTECTED]
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