-No Subject-

[Barry West <Barry_West -dot- S2K -at- S2KEXT -dot- S2K -dot- COM>]

I generally try not to digress from the purpose of the list. However, as a
former teacher . . .


Arlen wrote:

<snip> Then why does it make sense to blame the student when the teacher makes
>the assumption that one method of teaching serves all? In addition to learning
>faster or slower, people also learn differently. Good teachers can recognize
>this and adjust. Lazy ones don't. The lazy ones penalize the student for their
>own problems.<snip>

It doesn't make sense to blame student's in most cases, nor does it make sense
to blame teachers in most cases, as you suggest.

Scenario:

- You're a Math teacher.
- You have 5 math classes with 30+ students in each class.
- You have 50 minutes to teach them the lesson of the day, each day.
- Two or three of your students are problem students, so on most days you need
to take time to deal with them. You can't continuously send them to the office
because that's giving up and the administration won't allow it.
- Twenty percent of your students don't understand the lesson.
- You can't segregate the students who don't understand the lesson into
separate classes because the school board  and the general public see this as
discriminatory.
- You can't change the curriculum because you are required to teach the
curriculum approved by the school board. Even if you could 'adjust' the lessons
to let those students catch up, you would be depriving 80% of your students of
the complete curriculum which they need for the next grade level.
- You have one, part-time special needs teacher, but the state dictates who
qualifies as a special needs student and most of your students don't qualify.
And even if they did, you only have one, part-time special needs teacher.
- There is no staffed math lab because the school can't afford it, so you have
to rely on student tutors (who are not trained teachers) and the extra help you
can provide after school. The problem, of course, is that many of those
students have other commitments after school (such as work), they have parents
who don't support and reinforce their education, or they simply can't stay for
logistic reasons (they're down the hall getting help in other classes), so the
kids often don't show up.
-  The school requires that you give each student a grade to measure their
level of achievement against the curriculum.

As a good teacher, what adjustments in teaching style would you make to rectify
this situation?


Oversimplification is a dangerous thing.


PS. If you wish to react to this, let's maintain the tread off the list.

Barry_West -dot- S2K -at- s2kext -dot- s2k -dot- com