Respectful,Caring relations between students and teachers. If teachers want their students to achieve the best results, they should do so through engrossment in their student's welfare and emotional displacement.
I think for many teachers who I have had the opportuinity to work with, their job for them ends at their classroom door. Many of them fixate on the idea that they can only control what goes on in their room and what the kids do in the rest of their lives is none of their business. I do not disagree entirely with the idea that you can not do everything for your students but like the article states, authentic and aesthetic caring do not have to be mutual exclusive. I personally use my time as a coach during the school year to get to know the students better. I want them to know that as a teacher I am not just a man they have to interact with for school reasons. I am someone, if they feel comfortable, that they can go to and relate with if they have an issue they need help with.
Students become disinterested in what they view as irrelevant knowledge they do not need.
As a History-Social Studies teacher, this rings true more than in any other classroom. The way most history is taught to students leads itself to being portrayed as unimportant fact gathering. Many of these students end up feeling like history class is a structured time at the library with reference books. To some degree I feel the same way the students do. History should be taught as a living model. That everyday they live becomes another day in history.
Privileges make it difficult for these non-Latino teachers to understand the dramatic difference of the life of these students.
I had to think a lot on this issue. As a white teacher who will more than likely end up teaching a majority of non-white students, I have to remind myself that the way of life I knew and have come to know is not likely the life these students have and currently experience. How I structure homework and class expectations all relates to this idea of privilege. To me I feel the only way I can combat my own limitations as well as the perception of becoming an easy teacher is to embed a constant message that I am willing to listen even if at first I don't understand. I hope my students will give me the benefit of the doubt.
"You have to act disinterested, because if you say something and it comes out sounding stupid, everyone will think you are dumb, including the teacher."
I have witnessed and heard messages like this from the students I have worked in the behavioral program with many times. They often express hesitation on the part of their academic disabilities. For mainstream students though this is can be a similar experience. If a teacher also lends him or herself to the idea that if you say something incorrectly in class you will be humiliated for it, only pushes this notion of disinterest to self-protect.
Second Posting: Lesbian and Gay Adolescents
Homosexual Experiences
-When presented with the information regarding the ages of homosexual behaviors in adolescents, that gay males tend to experience sexual contact at an earlier age than lesbian females, I attributed this in large part to males being very physical in our sexuality. I remember being in middle school and beginning to like some of the girls I had class with. For me my desires almost always linked to a want for physical contact with these girls. I did want to be their friend or know them socially but in a sense of "desire" it was almost always for some sort of sexual contact. I feel like for girls regardless of who they are attracted to, there is a stronger want to connect with someone emotionally. I am not suggesting girls do not have physical desires as well, it just seems that for men it is the initial priority and that for women this is more often not the case.
"Lesbian women experience more heterosexual intercourse than gay males".
- I found throughout this article a keen interest to know why women tend to accept their homosexual orientation at a later age than males and I felt like this article never really gave a clear answer. I could go back to my original thoughts on women being more connected to emotional attachment than physical but that would be an oversimplification. I wonder why women feel they need to hide longer than gay males. Social experience has shown me that gay males are scrutinized as harshly as lesbian women by mainstream society so it doesn't seem to me that they deny their homosexual identity longer due to that.
"Identity crisis often occurs when the adolescent acknowledges that their homosexual feelings are seen as a negative and despised by society."
- Having spent the last five years working with the age demographic focused on in this article I have developed a better perspective on this very notion. Social anxiety is something almost every middle school student experiences. These students often go through a very natural period of self expression where most students will either cling to the cliche norms or become defiant of them. The most common identifier is clothing. From sixth grade to eight grade there is this gradual and at the same time immediate change in what clothes symbolize for these students. Many of them will go to extremes to single themselves out as unique in their clothing choice while an equal number form clicks where all their friends are wearing the same styles like some small mercenary group. Top all of these superficial and normal developments with the idea sexual recognition is almost too much to grasp. I have known students who exhibited homosexual tendencies and I have witnessed those same students go to great lengths to avoid them as the article suggests. I feel almost guilt at the role I played in middle school being one of those homophobic males who continued the unhealthy trend of not accepting homosexuality.
I see your point about teachers feeling their job ends at the door. I agree there is more they can do yet not everyone can be helped. The teachers who leave it in the classroom do themselves but also the students a disservice some time little things go a long way. I agree with you about history being presented in such a light. It can be so boring and drab as we both are well aware. But I feel that more teachers are becoming educated in better ways of presenting the material that makes it more interesting. History truly is living despite being the past and it is our goal to guide the students to make the connections between the the past and the present.
ReplyDelete