Dispositions

Dispositions cannot be taught. I believe that dispositions can be gradually changed over time, but cannot be taught by anyone other than the person experiencing a certain disposition. There is no step by step process to have a disposition. A disposition is a "person's inherent qualities of mind and character." In other words, it is how they think, so I would relate this closely to someone's personality. You cannot change a persons personality over night. Someone can watch another person that has certain dispositions and notice what it is that he or she does to exhibit those behaviors. However, a person needs to learn for themselves what does and does not work in their life and teaching style in order to accommodate a certain disposition.

I would recommend that education students get more experience working in front of classes in order to find their own dispositions. Being able to explain yourself through words and actually performing and demonstrating a disposition are two completely different things. Being in front of a group and leading a classroom somehow, someway, sometime would greatly demonstrate the dispositions of an education student. This may also really show the student if he or she can imagine teaching. Many education students do not get a good chance to find their own dispositions in action until they student teach. If they then realize that teaching is not for them they would seem to have very few options as to where to go from there.

Resilence

To be resilient means to recoil or spring back into shape after having been compressed, stretched or misshapen. So how does this apply to teaching? Teachers will often be stressed with their work load, the constant stream of parents asking about their child's performance, and the behavior of the students. A teacher needs to be resilient in order to deal with this.

First of all, a teacher needs to love teaching in order to effectively bounce back from any stresses. They need to know they are making a difference in the child's life and be passionate about their job. Teaching should be about reaching every student and making a difference in their life, but this is very tough and impractical to do. A teacher needs to have realistic expectations for their students and their own performance. To deal with the stress of being a teaching, they should take some time for themselves and relax and do something they enjoy outside of teaching. Too many constant stresses will break a teacher down so that they are no longer as effective as they can possibly be. A teacher will impact a students life the most with the time spent in the classroom. So instead of staying up all night to grade papers and tests, it is important for a teacher to relax some. The students can wait a day or two to get their papers back. Plus if you take you sweet time on papers and grading you will be spending more attention to detail and probably give more quality feedback to the the student than if you had done them all in one night. Overall, a teacher needs to love what they do and know their limits as to what they can reasonably accomplish. There will be stresses, but a teacher needs to be resilient in order to bounce back and be the most effective teacher they can be.

Humility

I make quite a few mistakes in my everyday life, but I am usually able to laugh at them. There is nothing worse than a stubborn teacher. A teacher needs to realize that they will make mistakes in class. When they do make mistakes it is important for them to realize that and laugh at them and fix the situation. Teaching has a lot to do with building relationships with students and having students that can trust you. Students will question the confidence and intelligence of a teacher that makes mistakes and will not admit to them. Instead, if a teacher is able to laugh at themselves and admit to a mistake, then the student is reassured that it is okay to make a mistake. It is important for students to realize that it is alright to make mistakes in the classroom. Kids are participating less in the classroom for fear of giving a wrong answer.

In the event that a teacher does make a mistake, it is important for them to be real about it. Kids learn from their teachers a lot, so a teacher should not be overly apologetic, sarcastic, or defensive of their error. They should take responsibility for their mistake but not bring much attention to it.

I'm beginning to think that teachers should purposely make mistakes on occasion in the classroom. If they make a mistake on purpose then the students should notice that mistake if it is something they have already learned. If the teacher admitted to making a mistake then they could ask the students where the teacher messed up. I feel like this strategy would keep kids engaged in the classroom and help them to sort out the important information and learn listening skills.

Being humiliated is not a bad thing. People just need to learn how to laugh at their error and be respectful of people that are correcting them. Everyone makes mistakes, but schools today seem to punish mistakes. Nobody is going to be perfect. Teachers can help shape a child's view on humility by accepting their error and reiterating that it is not a bad thing to be wrong on most occasions.

Collaborativeness

Collaboration is a key element to the success of a teacher. Teachers need to talk about what is going on in their classroom with other teachers. This will allow teachers to compare and contrast what is and is not working in regards to teach the students. Teachers are always looking for a way to get more students to understand more material. Collaboration is different than group work in a few ways. Collaboration is more of a joint effort than group work can be. In groups there are commonly people that take over certain parts of the task at hand. Collaboration allows for more of a discussion as well. Group work is usually oriented around a task, while teachers collaborating is a way for them to see what they need to talk about or what they would like to talk about to better their teaching.

An example of collaboration can be observed from my summer work experience. I was part of a field maintenance crew at a baseball complex that was going to host the state tournament for the 14AAA Travel teams. Because there was so much that needed to be done, we all took jobs we knew how to do in order to get the tournament ready. If we saw someone doing a task that we felt could be done in a better way we went and talked about a new way to do that task. We were all working together to get the complex ready for the hundreds of people that would be showing up. I am confident that our discussions on how to improve our work really helped get the job done better than if it had just been a group project and we did individual tasks.

Efficacy

A teacher needs to be extremely confident with his or her abilities in the classroom. If they are not confident, the students will pick up on this. If a student does not have faith in the knowledge of their teacher they will not try as hard in the classroom. They will ask less questions and try to get away with doing the least amount of work possible. Demonstrating knowledge in the classroom should have limits though. A teacher should not show off their talents to the extent of what they are capable of, but rather use differentiated instruction to reach each child. If a student is having trouble then the teacher should use a simplified version until the student understands that concept, then add a little more detail into it. On the flip side, a student that is engaged in the material and succeeding should be pushed further, so in this case the teacher can use more of their knowledge to push the student further. Teachers should not settle for a class that absorbs the same information. Instead, they should push each child to the highest level they can perform and succeed in. A teacher that is confident in his or her abilities and knows the material will be able to reach more students than one who lacks these qualities.

These attributes of being confident, using their knowledge and differentiated instruction are all learned with experience. The teacher needs to connect to the students, but with such an age difference between them, the teacher might need to run a few trial and errors. The teacher needs to be observant of the students' needs and know what the best way for them to learn is. Collaborating with other teachers is a good way to learn the culture of the school and the students in it.

Creativity and Inventiveness

Schools in today's society do not praise inventiveness and creativity as much as they should. Schools are becoming more uniform in their education and focusing only on the knowledge and expression of the brain. Standardized testing can not show the intelligence of a child who expresses himself or herself through movement.

Arts and other forms of expressions are no longer praised in the modern school. Arts, music and theater and among the first activities lost during school budget cuts. How many top musicians are we losing with these cuts? How many kids no longer have an outlet from their everyday life? These activities are ones where kids can learn to make mistakes and how to fix them. Kids are becoming more terrified of making mistakes in their schooling because it is frowned upon. They are expected to always have the right answer. Critical thinking should be praised more than the correct answer because it allows creativity. In the video it said that teachers are supposed to be preparing the incoming kindergarten class for the year 2065 when they do not even know what the world will be like in five years. Degrees from college mean less than they did in the past. The educational system is under inflation and its hurting the students. Creativity is one thing that each child develops for themselves and it can lead to original ideas that will help them in their future. Because more kids are scared of being wrong, there will be less original ideas. Instead, they will be made into what some people think is the "ideal student." As the video stated, I also think that education is diverse. There is not one way to teach the youth of the world. They need to be allowed to explore new ideas and be given more freedom. There was the one girl who expressed herself through movement, but had trouble in the regular schooling atmosphere. She ended up being extremely successful. Why not give this opportunity to more children? Instead, we medicate our children because we think they are too hyper while they are just being themselves and being kids. Just because a kid will not sit still in the classroom, we believe he or she has a learning disability. I disagree. These kids typically just have another way of expressing themselves and a different way of seeing things.

Creativity is discouraged in the modern school system. Our youth are more afraid to make mistakes, which leads to less original ideas. Arts are among the first losses when schools face budget cuts. In the future, these kids' creativity is what will allow them to be successful because the average college degree means very little compared to what it used to. All in all, schools need to praise the creativity of its children and rethink the hierarchy of the school subjects taught in the classrooms.

Role Playing in the Classroom

Role playing is an effective activity for classrooms to use because it is not only engaging, but also makes students think critically. It is an effective teaching strategy if every student does their assigned part. They must take on the role of the person(s) or event that they are given. They will learn to look at topics from different points of view and develop a deeper understanding for the matter at hand. Some students learn better by being engaged in a topic and they are allowed more freedom to discover the topic for themselves. They are required to develop quick, but well supported, thoughts to prove their point and raise their concerns in a respectable manner. In regards to history teaching, role playing can help students to see how culture different in the past. This is important in them understanding how our society is the way that it is today.

I do not think it is completely necessary for students to have a solid base of basic knowledge in order to learn. It is possible to learn from experience and seeing things. They then will be able to demonstrate this knowledge back in the form of speaking because their writing and reading skills are not sufficient. However, I do believe that students should have a good grasp on their basic skills before engaging in complex learning tasks. They are able to make connections to different sorts of material to prove their point and use other techniques to follow up on their message. While students are able engage in complex learning without strong basic skills, they will not be able to make their point proven in many ways. They should be able to prove their point in different ways in order to reach a larger portion of their target audience.

Most communities listen to the high achieving families before they listen to the other representatives of other families. Schools like to show that their program makes some of the strongest students. I think that sometimes schools make the assumption that the lower achieving students just do not want to learn. They forget more of the economic and social factors that play into their learning and label these kids as challenged. The families of higher achieving students might be more willing to invest in a school or community than a family of a lower achieving student, so the district wants to keep the higher achieving people happy.

Emotional engagement in a subject can really determine how well a student is going to do in that class. Interest in a subject will lead to a child asking more questions and looking for broader knowledge of it and relating that topic to other areas in their life. If a student does not engage in a topic then he/she will just try to memorize and spit out the information for tests and quizzes. This strategy does not allow a student to develop a deeper level of thinking, which is critical to their development as a learner.

Passion

Passion can most readily be described as enthusiasm or excitement for a subject in which someone is usually dedicated. The passion that a teacher exhibits in his or her classroom is critical to the students appreciation and excitement for it as well.

I will never forget the passion that my eleventh grade United States History teacher had for her subject. In fact, she is what inspired me to study history and become interested in teaching. My teacher was extremely interested in learning about history and why things happened the way that they did. She frequently asked critical questions to make us think more about why our world is the way that it is. This was much more interesting to learn and think about rather than memorizing dates, names and locations. My most vivid memory of the class was when she told us to flip our desks over on the ground and make trenches. Then she began to teach us about World War One while we hit behind our desks on the hard ground. Surprisingly, it really made the material come to life when we were able to experience something outside of just another lecture and note taking.

On the other hand, a lack of passion in the classroom is really hard on the students. I had three poor math teachers in high school. None of them were excited to teach, or at least did not make it interesting to learn. Day after day we memorized one formula after another and the teachers did not apply it to real world examples. The lack of passion that these teachers had made me lose my motivation to learn math. Every year as I would go up one level in math I felt further behind than the rest of the class.

The amount of passion that a teacher has for his or her subject is going to affect kids in different ways, but I think it is safe to say that no kids will benefit from a lack of enthusiasm. Almost every kid will learn better if the teacher believes what they are teaching is important enough for the kids to know. Its not always the content that matters, but instead, digging deeper into the subjects and asking critical questions. I believe this is the strength that passionate teachers have over other teachers. They are able to ask deeper questions and have the kids answer critical questions and develop their minds in a way besides memorizing facts and spitting them back onto a page.

Passionate teaching is crucial to the development of a child. They often look up to their teacher as a role model and take the same interest in a subject that the teacher does. If an adult does not find math to be cool, then the kid will not think it is cool either. A passionate teacher has the ability to change and expand the minds of many kids if they are dedicated and enthusiastic about their area of study.

Authenticity

First of all, to be 'Authentic' is to be genuine, to be yourself. It is not doing what it takes to fit into a crowd that is different from your beliefs, attitudes, characteristics or morals.

Some people may ask, "How do you know where to draw the line for limits of being authentic?" I say that there is no line. It depends on who you are engaging with, their reactions towards you and your level of comfort with the situation. More and more teachers are becoming less authentic in today's schools. They try to connect with their students on more of a friendship level, instead of a level of authority and one of knowledge. Students can tell when teachers are not authentic by how they talk and joke. Students already have their friends, or are at least not looking to be friends with someone many years older than themselves. Do not get me wrong that students do still look for guidance from a teacher or professor, but that is because they look up to them and see them at a different level. Also, if a teacher is not interested in their topic, then they are not an authentic teacher. They need to appreciate their own knowledge and have fun with it in order to pass it on to their students.

Students respect an authentic teacher much more than one that is not authentic. "Fake" teachers are ones that students will try to take advantage of. Whether it is just asking to go out in the hall, to the bathroom, or even cheating on a test, they will push the limits of the teacher to see how much they can get away with. A teacher needs to assert themselves as the power in the class and gain the trust of the students in order to be authentic. The previous two blogs on respect and compassion go into being an authentic teacher. Without these qualities, or without the true feelings towards students, the kids will label the teacher as "fake" and push the limits of them.

Being authentic and just being yourself is what the kids expect. They do not expect you to be like them, but they want you to be there for them if they need you. This trust is gained by being no one other than yourself.

Compassion

To be compassionate means to be sympathetic to ones needs and have a desire to understand and improve the conditions of one's life. So what does it look like to be compassionate in a classroom and is it necessary?

I believe that is critical for students to receive compassion from their educators, at least to a certain limit. Too much compassion will take away from the students learning because they will be able to slack off. Too little compassion and it the classroom will become a military boot camp and the students will not enjoy the learning experience. For a teacher to show compassion, they must be aware of how their teaching is affecting their individual students, not just the class as a whole. However, the teacher still needs to be able to challenge the students to the full level of their abilities.

The first teacher that comes to mind when I think of compassion is Lombo. He was a high school teacher of mine. I had missed a few days of class due to illness and he took time out of his busy schedule to bring me up to speed. He was very aware of how fast I was learning the material and sympathetic and understanding about the parts I had questions on. He would give me difficult problems to try and guide me through them without giving me the answer. This pushed me to think more and grasp the concept even better. In a few days I had made up more the same amount of material that the class had done the past week.

It was great to have a teacher treat me the way he did. I learned the material faster than I would have in class normally because of the devotion and compassion he showed me when he worked on a one-to-one basis.

If more teachers were aware of where each student was in their class, then they would be able to help that student more or less, whether to push them more or not. This would drastically improve the knowledge of each student and quite possibly their motivation to learn. When someone cares about what someone is doing, inside or outside of school, their strive and motivation to continue that work and do a good job excels. Lombo gave me this opportunity and I am very thankful for him doing so.

Respect

Respect can be defined as “a feeling of deep admiration for someone or something elicited by their abilities, qualities or achievements.” It is important for teachers to demonstrate respect towards their students and compliment and encourage them on a job well done. 

Teachers can build respect with their students by following through with the schedule they have prepared, helping students out as a class and individually, connecting with students at a personal level, and so on. Teachers can also gain the respect of students by listening to their different view and not criticizing them in a negative manner. There is also a way to criticize (maybe ‘object’ is a better word) a students work or thought, but to do it in an academic matter. A well supported case makes way for a healthy debate, which I find very beneficial to students. 

During my senior year in high school we would have Socratic Seminars and/or debates about current issues in the United States. Some examples include illegal immigration, health care, abortion, death penalty, War on Terrorism, etc. I clearly put out my view on an issue and some other students agreed with me and provided more factual evidence. However, the teacher then voiced his opinion because the students had not taken a counter argument. While he tried to prove his point, he was still very respectful of my views. He never said I was wrong, but rather had me listen to his facts so I would see the other side of the argument as well. This kind of teaching is one that demonstrates respect to students. 

It is difficult for me to think of any time a teacher disrespected me. The only thought that comes to mind is when I was in marching band my junior year. The director called me out and yelled at me for not paying attention to him out on the field. I repeated everything he had said the minute before, but he made me go run two laps on the track for mouthing off to him. I never thought I crossed the line with my argument, but for him to make me run laps... really? He had called me out for something I did not do and disrespected me in front of 160 other classmates.  

More respect in the classroom can have many beneficial qualities. I notice that students are more likely to work in a constructive manner and ask questions that are yearn for deeper understanding. They will recognize the knowledge of the teacher and his or her dedication to their profession. Disrespect in the classroom can lead to a lack of productivity, arguments, and other negative qualities. 

Respect should be one of the first things established in a classroom. Respect from teacher to student, student to teacher, and student to student are all essential to a quality learning experience. People need to admire the effort that others have put into work and profession but still take as much from them and learn from it.