The Great Educator

Teachers are expected to have a sound understanding of the content they teach.  But, that alone is not enough to grasp student’s attention and entice them to want to learn.  To really encourage learning, teachers need to understand and value all of the different cultural influences that students bring with them when they walk in the door.  By having a better understanding of the many different influences in a child’s life, the teacher will be better equipped to provide instruction that is appealing to the student.  Teachers that have a clear understanding of the importance of cultural influences will also be able to create connections in student work to the things that students may consider important in their life.  The connections made between the school work and the real life influences develop a sense of value and interest for the student toward the work.  Educator Phil Schlechty expresses that when teachers are designing work for students they should focus on what he describes as design qualities.  One specific design quality is “authenticity” (Schlechty, 2011, p. 94).  He describes authenticity as:

Genuineness.  Activities that satisfy the need for autheniticity accept the students’ definition of the situation as the most important concern and are designed to conform with these definitions.  Activities that respond to the need for authenticity accept the world of students as a resource rather than a problem.  The work is designed with an eye toward capitalizing on the student subculture (Schlechty, 2011, p. 94). 

Teachers that are able to create a classroom where the students want to learn because they feel genuinely connected to the work will have eliminated any problems that other teachers may still be experiencing due to a misunderstanding of cultural influences. 

However, doing this is not an easy job.  It takes time and effort for teachers to understand both the cultural differences that students come to school with and the overwhelming number of influences that occur on a daily basis in a child’s life.  It is not only about knowing who the student is as a person; but it is also about knowing their family dynamic, their friends, their likes and dislikes, what is important to them, just to mention a few.  In 1984, Benjamin Bloom wrote that at the secondary level, the peer group was likely to be the strongest (both positive and negative) influence towards school.  As noted in our prompt, Dewey named social influence as the great educator.  So, the job of the teacher has really never been about just teaching content. Teachers should have always been aware of the importance of understanding outside factors and the impact on student learning. 

As discussed in Chapter 14 of School and Society, there are different motivations to why individuals decide to teach.  However, if the individual chooses teaching for the right reasons then it will always be about the kids.  Teachers that understand that their job is about nothing other than the success of their students will take the extra time and effort needed to understand about cultural differences and influences in daily student life. Failure to understand either the differences or influences can make or break education for our young people.  By understanding cultural influences, teachers are able to create classrooms that support learning for all students.

References

Bloom, B.S. (1984, May).  The search for methods of group instruction as effective   as one-to-one tutoring.  Educational Leadership, 4-17.

Schlechty, P.C. (2011).  Engaging students:  The next level of working on the     work.  San Francisco, California:  Jossey-Bass.

Tozer, S.E., Senese, G. , & Violas, P.C. (2009).  School and society:  Historical           and contemporary perspectivies.  New York, New York:  McGraw-Hill.