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A Thought…
Teaching will give you daily an unbelievable roller coaster ride
from the depths of total frustration to the highs of incredible rewards. In most
cases, you will never know the results of your actions. It is a profession that
is given little respect and lots of criticism. Everyone is an expert and quite
willing to tell you so. Rarely do you receive thanks but with one tiny look, word,
or action a student can inspire and reward you beyond all expectation and you
find yourself thinking maybe I will come back tomorrow!!
At this time of year, all teachers need to stop, eavaluate our efforts, and fight
hard NOT to become discouraged. Perhaps this will help you.
Random
Thoughts
by Louis Schmier
How easy it is to
be happy in happy situations, but how meaningful it is to be happy and feel alive
in spite of unhappy situations. I have to work at happiness. I have to work to
see the sun shining on a dismal and rainy day. Anyone can be unhappy. That takes
no courage, no effort ..... It just takes energy draining surrendering of enthusiasm
and excitement.......
True happiness lays in struggling to be happy.
That is true in all facets of life including my teaching. So, let me shift my
thoughts about happiness to my teaching.
To paraphrase Emerson, I don't believe
that any good teaching is achieved without enthusiasm for yourself and people.
And enthusiastic teaching doesn't occur without being happy, without being turned
on and lit up and getting a kick out of each person and with yourself in that
classroom.
I think we owe it to ourselves and every person around us to be
a happy educator.
I am now even more aware that happy and unhappy teaching
are under my control. I decide what and who I like and don't like, what and who
I love and don't love.
I am a happy teacher because I choose to be happy about
each student, no matter what the circumstances. I don't wait for it; I go looking
for it. I fight hard, not always successfully...
How do I fight to stay happy?
Glad you asked.
First, I am now grateful! Grateful for what I have, who I
am, where I am, what I do and can do, and who I can be. I don't think an ungrateful
educator, having once been one until eight years ago, can be happy and I don't
think complaining educators are happy either.
Second, I far more often than
not resist the ravages of the "perfect student" syndrome.
Third, I
don't play the comparison game, comparing myself with anyone else's resume or
reputation or salary scale, wondering about a bunch of "could haves" and "would
haves" and "should haves."
Fourth, I just won't my happiness be sabotaged
by fixating on students' imperfections.
Fifth, I also realize that happiness
is a product of having a purpose. It's energized by a vision.
And finally,
I find the positive in virtually every situation and every student.....
.
...I go into each class and expect to discover new things; and I do.
I go
into each class expecting to see new people; and I do.
I go into each class
expecting a miracle to occur, and it does.
....I know this to be true:
if I choose to find the positive in virtually every student, every day, in every
classroom;
if I choose to have hope, faith, belief, love in every student,
every day will be a happy one of discovery.
I will be excited and I will
be happy. I will be blessed with joy, satisfaction, fulfillment, and days overflowing
with "wows."
I will be proud of who I am and what I do. ....
More
of Louis Schmier"s Random Thoughts
A
student's perspective is very different from a teacher's perspectives. A student's
world is very different from a teacher's world. Be sure you are talking
about the same thing, using the same meaning for words, and viewing the event
in the same way.
Besides location and
time, technology and custom can have an effect on perspective.
Technology constantly changes our vocabulary, our way
of reacting to situations.
There is now a website English teachers can subscribe
to that will check for Plagiarism.
A teacher, telling a student that paragraphs
needed to be indented, received very puzzled looks. She resorted to demonstrating
what she meant.
"Oh, you mean tab-in!" exclaimed the student as
light finally dawn on him what she was trying to say.
Indent your paragraph
is obsolete. Tab-In now has that meaning
Cell phones have
affected us in many ways.
A teacher lost her patience with a disruptive student
and pulled out her cell phone and dialed.
"Hello, Mr. Jones. This is
Miss Peterson, your son's teacher. As we discussed in our conference last week,
John is not behaving in an appropriate manner and is disrupting the class lessons.
Please speak to your son NOW as he is misbehaving and is very disruptive."
She handed the phone to John as the rest of the class looked on with open mouths.
It worked! John settled and was very respectful the rest of the day.
Another
teacher uses the phone to verify absences especially questionable ones. Challenging
a parent's signature, she was told that Mom had broken her right arm and had to
sign with her left hand. A quick phone call resulted,
"I'm so sorry you
broke your arm..Oh? It's not?? Your son said you had to sign with your left hand
because you had broken it.
Would you like to speak to him?" and handed
the phone to a horrified student.
Besides location,
time, and technology, custom can have an effect on perspective.
The word gay is often encountered in stories and in poetry. In the past 20 years
that word has taken on an entirely new meaning. So now that word needs explanation
of its use.
ALWAYS ask for more information or additional facts
or an explanation!
A student's perspective is very different from a teacher's perspective.
A student's world is very different from a teacher's world. Be sure you
are talking about the same thing, using the same meaning for words, and viewing
the event in the same way.
ALWAYS ask for more information or additional
facts or an explanation! Location affects perspective.
*A
Vietnamese student new to the USA insisted that he couldn't do division.
When
asked, "Can you do Vietnamese division?"
He smiled and said, "Yes!"
The assignment was quickly completed and he enjoyed sharing the "Vietnamese
division" with the other students. *Sue had lived her whole life in
an urban area where town borders
were immediately next to each other and
it was often hard to tell where one town began and another ended. Often, one side
of the street was Town A and the other side of the street was Town B.
On a National Standardized Test, she agonized over this question: What
would you use to measure the distance between towns?
A. inches B. miles C.
centimeters D. milliliters
Either answer A. inches or C. centimeters was the
obvious answer. But which???
She finally chose C. centimeters because, she
reasoned, a line dividing one town from another would be a centimeter's width.
She was basing her answer on what her experience had taught her.
She was CORRECT!
But on the test her answer was considered WRONG!
ALWAYS ask for more information
or additional facts or an explanation! Passage of Time can also
affect perspective. Who brings the milk? At one time, the correct
answer was the milkman. Today, often the answer you will get is Dad! (on his way
home from work)
Students who can't (read, do math, anything academic)
think those who can magically know
how to do these skills. They don't understand, nor have they
seen, the learning steps others have gone through to acquire the skills. They
have never realized that failure is part of the learning process. They have not
seen the practice, practice, practice and more practice that
has occurred to learn the skill. Learning, to them, just happens. There is never
any failure; and, those who can, are able to do the skill proficiently
and immediately.
On the other hand, students do recognize
that a physical skill has involved learning steps, failures, and requires much
practice.
Students need to be told that there is a way to get from
A (beginning level to B (proficient level). There is a ladder that must be climbed
one rung at a time. They, too, can get to the top! Tell the following story.
Practice it. Embellish it. Dramatize it. Michael Jordan-basketball
Tiger Woods-golfer
Wayne Gretzgy-ice hockey One day (any of the above
names) got up and said to himself,
" Hmmmm, I'm going to be THE
most skilled and famous ( game to match) player."
(Name) then (threw
the basketball and made a basket / hit a hole in one / skated onto the ice and
made a goal against 5 opposing players).
WOW! I'm great! and he was
instantly THE most skilled and famous ( game to match) player. Students
will be laughing at this point. Lead them in a discussion of how the person became
THE most skilled and famous ( game to match) player. Then end with
(name) and YOU in order to learn must
practice, practice, practice,
practice, practice, practice, practice, practice, practice, practice, practice,
practice, practice, practice, practice, practice, practice, practice, practice,
practice, practice, practice, practice, practice, practice, practice, practice,
practice, practice, practice,
AND PRACTICE! Yes,
say practice 30 plus 1 times. When you are learning to read,YOU
must
practice, practice, practice, practice, practice, practice,
practice, practice, practice, practice, practice, practice, practice, practice,
practice, practice, practice, practice, practice, practice, practice, practice,
practice, practice, practice, practice, practice, practice, practice, practice,
AND PRACTICE! When you are learning,_______(division, integers,
geology, etc.), YOU must
practice, practice, practice, practice,
practice, practice, practice, practice, practice, practice, practice, practice,
practice, practice, practice, practice, practice, practice, practice, practice,
practice, practice, practice, practice, practice, practice, practice, practice,
practice, practice,
AND PRACTICE! And repeat this many,
many times all year. Students will begin to understand that success in academic
skills is possible.
Be sure to tell them...Now you can do (this skill). You
are ready to climb to the next rung of the ladder. Next you will learn (this new
skill).
Wouldn't this be a nice change? Maybe in the future this will happen......
On Education and Learning
In ancient times a king decided to find
and honor the greatest person among his subjects. A man of wealth and property
was singled out. Another was praised for his healing powers; another for his wisdom
and knowledge of the law. Still another was lauded for his business acumen. Many
other successful people were brought back to the palace, and it became evident
that the task of choosing the greatest would be difficult. Finally, the last candidate
stood before the king. It was a woman. Her hair was white. Her eyes shown with
the light of knowledge, understanding, and love.
"Who is this?" asked the
king. "What has she done?"
"You have seen and heard all the others," said
the king's aide. "This is their teacher."
The people applauded and the king
came down from his throne to honor her.
Cited in The
Best of BITS & PIECES
If 99.9% is good enough then...
*two million documents will be
lost by the IRS this year
*22,000 checks will be deducted from the wrong bank
account in the next 60 minutes
*12 babies will be given to the wrong parents
each day
*1,314 phone calls will be incorrectly placed every minute
*2,488,200
books will be shipped in the next 12 months with the wrong cover
*two plane
landings daily at O'Hare International Airport in Chicago will be unsafe
*291
pacemaker operations will be performed incorrectly this year
*880,000 credit
cards in circulation will have incorrect information on their magnetic strip
*20,000 incorrect drug prescriptions will be written in the next 12 months
*315 entries in the Webster's Third New International Dictionary of the English
Language will be misspelled
..do
you really want your surgeon, or dentist, or airplane mechanic, or pharmacist
to have gotten only an 80% on the qualifying test????
Set high standards
for your students. Challenge them to always work with their greatest effort
to reach for the highest goal.
.
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