3Erroneous Reasons Teachers Give Up on Students and How to Avoid It

Ntrumoc25 — Sun, 20 Sep 2015 01:20:02 +0000

Becoming discouraged with teaching is understandable, giving the nature of the today’s education system. Sometimes there seems to be no clear goal to close the achievement gap. Countless strategies and theories have failed to make a difference. However, all things are possible to teachers who believe that the educational system can be revitalized to effectively reach all students, regardless of conditions. However, teachers must eliminate the top three erroneous beliefs.

Many No Longer think Students Can Learn with Joy

Because of the stress of teaching, many new educators have giving up on inspiring students to learn with joy. In fact, many don’t believe that it can be done anymore. Instead of seeing the joy of learning on the students face, teachers meet with frowns and groans of resistance and boredom on the part of students. They are becoming less and less interested in setting at a desk and listening to the teacher lecture them.

However, the right thing to do is to keep hope alive. You must believe that students can learn with joy if the right school environment and atmosphere exist. Administrators and teachers must come up with new, innovative ways to teach students. Some schools are experimenting with holding outdoor classes and other creative strategies for getting students outside the classroom.

Frequent science projects, fieldtrips or community engagement are a few of the strategies designed get student’s back interested in learning. The more the teacher can design wonderful experiences for their students the more students will desire to be part of a joyful learning experience.

Many No Longer Think Students can Achieve beyond Expectations

Due to a number of outside temptations competing for student’s attention, many teachers feel that it is impossible to get students motivated to achieve beyond expectations. Facebook, Twitter, You tube and other social media sites such as Instagram have captivated the minds of today’s students. You can hardly go into a high school classroom without seeing 90% of the students with smartphones.

These social media outlets do pose a high degree of competition. Nevertheless, with the right tools educators can compete for the minds of the students. Virtue schools and learning software can be improved to make the school day magical.

Giving students the virtual learning experience is the hallmark of the future. The lure of new technology and the obsession with it cannot be ignored among school administrator and teachers. The classroom must catch up and do it quickly an order to motivate students to achieve beyond expectation.

Many No Longer Think that Parents Want to be Involved

Many new teachers give up due to not getting enough parents involved in student learning. We can all agree that parent participation in a child’s education is highly significant. Children value the inspiration of their parent more than the encouragement of a hundred teachers.

However, as an avid educator, I witness, on a constant basis that parents are a no show 80% of the times when it comes to parent/teacher conferences. So what can a teacher do to get parents more involved in their child’s education?
The simplest answer is to keep trying to reach the parents in one way or another.

Teachers who have been successful in connecting with parents have used a number of strategies. For, example, some teachers develop a personal relationship with parents by interacting with them outside of school hours. Speeding extra weekend time with students or inviting the parent for a coffee outing can do wonders toward building strong relationships between teachers and parents.

However, this will take venturing outside of your comfort zone in order to make an attempt at winning the hearts of the parents. But the risk is well worth the effort, if it means getting parents on your team.

Teaching in America can become very discouraging at times. Students are becoming more and more challenging. Many classrooms have become social clubs where students like to talk 80% of the time while giving only 20% of focus. However, the willingness not to give up on teaching will help reach the life of a child who needs your love and care.

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How To Become a Better Multi-Dimensional Teacher

Ntrumoc25 — Wed, 16 Sep 2015 19:44:51 +0000

My mistake as a first year teacher was to expect that a typical day in the classroom would go smooth without any other distractions or interruptions. I imagined that all the students would sit there quietly and absorb the lessons I presented to them. Boy! Was I wrong! What a rude awakening!
In today’s classroom, a teacher must be multi-dimensional in conducting a classroom. She must be a teacher, counseling and an interpreter. She must be able to teach three lessons at the same time, depending on the school’s approach to educating students.
Gone are the days when teachers could take a one dimensional approach to teaching without any subsidiary lessons, behavior interruptions, communication problems and administrative demands. New teachers quit teaching because they are unprepared to be multi-dimensional. They become burnt out halfway through the first semester. However, if new teachers are trained for this type of reality, they will enter their first year of teaching with confidence in their abilities to handle the various classroom challenges.

The Different Hats of the Multi-Dimensional Teacher

To reach greatness as a teacher, you must wear many hats. First you must be a teacher. You must have an academic vision for each student, an ongoing relationship with parents and a personal teaching philosophy in order to take your students to heights that will empower them for a life of progress and impact in society.

Second, you must be a counselor. I know there is probably a school counselor, but students will spend most of their time with you. When they are down and unmotivated, it is your responsibility to get to the bottom of what is ailing them. A child who is emotionally distraught will sap the excitement out of the learning environment if nothing is done.

Third, you must be an interpreter. Many of your students will come from diverse backgrounds. You may not be able to understand their language at first, but with patient and attentive listening you will grow to understand what they are saying. You may even want to study the basics of several languages in order to better understand the culture of your students.

Fourth, as a teacher, you will have to teach two or three student groups simultaneously. For example, you may have to teach a reading group, while another group works on writing skills and another work on a special project. In addition, you must be able to organize the class in such a way that distractions, interruptions and problems will get resolved without stopping the overall flow of learning. However, have no fear. These are the challenges that make great teachers. Once you get accustomed to this type of teaching it will eventually become second nature.

The Gift of Organization

The best asset of a multi-dimensional teacher is the ability to stay organized. Without this asset chaos and confusion will be the order of the day. Students will be uncertain as to what comes next. As a result, they will be tempted to act out and cause discipline issues. Therefore, teachers must create practical routines that students can independently fall into during the course of the day. For example, students should know what to do and when to do it, whether it is taking out math books at the beginning of the hour, performing Word Sorts during group work or switching classes for WIN time in the middle of the morning. Once students adapt to these routines and patterns, the order of the day will unfold with ease and academic productivity will increase.

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