Becoming a Teacher
成為一名教師
1、Introduction 引言
Traditionally, teaching was very important and often high professionalism of teachers defines the level of education students receive. This is why it is extremely important to carefully analyze the experience of teachers’ work that can help better understand possible advantages and drawbacks of different ways of teaching which are characteristic of different types of teachers.
In fact, nowadays teaching methods and techniques may vary dramatically. Nonetheless, there are some universal values and basic principles that should be always taking into consideration while analyzing the work of a teacher or while becoming a professional teacher. Basically, in the current situation it is necessary to pay a particular attention to individual approach to each student in order to better understand the personality needs and demands of each student. Also it is necessary to develop essential social skills in the process of teaching to the extent that students could be socialized and become an integral part of modern society.
傳統(tǒng)上,教學(xué)是非常重要的,通常高水平的教師意味著學(xué)生可以接受高質(zhì)量的教育。這就是為什么仔細(xì)分析教師的工作經(jīng)驗是非常重要的,可以更好地了解不同類型的教師不通教學(xué)特征方面的缺點。
事實上,現(xiàn)今的教學(xué)方法和技術(shù)可能會戲劇性地改變。盡管如此,有一些普遍性的價值取向和基本原則,應(yīng)始終考慮分析老師的工作或成為一個專業(yè)的老師。基本上,在當(dāng)前形勢下,要特別注意個人對每個學(xué)生的方式為了更好地了解每個學(xué)生的個性需求。教學(xué)也有必要在一定程度上,學(xué)生可以社會化,成為現(xiàn)代社會的一個組成部分,基本的社會技能。
At the same time, it is necessary to remember that teaching is the two-side road where teacher and students constantly interact and influence each other. In such a situation, it is extremely important that teaching brought satisfaction not only to students but teachers as well.
Anyway, the major goal of each teacher should be the development of their students in accordance to the basic demands of the modern world as independent, intellectual, social, and responsible citizens. The basic goals of education and teaching in particular, may be achieved in different ways and in this respect, the effectiveness of teaching depends on a type of a teacher which may vary dramatically.
In such a way, in order to become a real teacher it is necessary to clearly understand all basic needs of students and demands contemporary teachers should meet.
同時,有必要記住,教學(xué)是教師和學(xué)生兩方面是不斷的相互作用與影響的。在這種情況下,教學(xué)帶來的不僅僅是對學(xué)生,教師滿意度是非常重要的。#p#分頁標(biāo)題#e#
無論如何,每個教師的主要目標(biāo)應(yīng)該是根據(jù)學(xué)生發(fā)展的基本要求,現(xiàn)代世界是獨立的,智力,社會,和負(fù)責(zé)任的公民。教育教學(xué)的基本目標(biāo),可能會以不同的方式達(dá)到,在這方面,教學(xué)的有效性取決于教師類型可能會戲劇性地改變。
在這樣一種方式下,為了成為一個真正的教師必須清楚地了解所有的基本需求和當(dāng)代教師應(yīng)滿足學(xué)生需求。
2、Art and students development 藝術(shù)與學(xué)生發(fā)展
Obviously, in the current situation the role of art in the teaching process and educating of students is extremely important and cannot be underestimated. It is necessary to underline that art should be an integral part of the teaching process because it is due to art students can develop in harmony and develop essential skills, acquire important experience and get accustomed to universal humanitarian principles and values which can really unite people and contribute to tolerance, equality and prosperity of human society.
This is why it is necessary to analyze the lessons of Mrs Cotter in a Junior Kindergarten classroom and Mrs Brandon in a Grade 6 classroom. Basically, both teachers use arts in their lessons that is obviously quite useful for the students development. It should be pointed out that in Mrs Cotter’s classroom students attempt to the abstractly painted black area near the center of Miss Judy’s painting. Basically, this activity is quite interesting and involving students to work. At the same time, it is really thought provoking and emotionally colored because students really want to participate in this activity and, what is more important, their creative abilities are involved since they should develop their creative thinking in order to qualify in their own way the visual information they see. In such a way, students have to develop their creative and critical thinking since to fulfill this task they should synthesize the visual information with the emotional and intellectual experience they were having with the work of art .
At the same time, it should be pointed out that the lesson is a bit chaotic because students, being overwhelmed with emotions, are getting to be more and more involved, some students cannot even stay on their seats and start to interrupt each other in attempts to draw the attention of the teacher, which, in her turn, seems to get losing the control over the classroom. Obviously, it does not contribute to higher effectiveness of the lesson because some students are deprived while the whole class is getting to be in a kind of mess.
At the same time, the teacher does not directly link this lesson to previous ones this is why it is hardly possible to trace whether students are prepared for such activities and what is its long-term purpose because it is logically to wonder whether students have already had such experience or probably this activity is totally new for them. This is why, on analyzing this lesson, it is possible to recommend starting with some activities which would help student to revise what they have lardy done during previous lessons and, consequently, they would establish a strong link between their past experience and current learning process.#p#分頁標(biāo)題#e#
In this respect, another lesson in Mrs Brandon grade 6 classroom is quite different. It is necessary to underline that the teacher starts with the reminding of what students were doing during the previous lesson. When students answer is getting to be evident that they dealt with symbols and, what is more, similarly to the previous lesson art was also involved. To put it more precisely, students learned what symbols are and at the present moment they are supposed to present their own symbols which they depicted in the form of paintings. As a result, the effect of such activity is, to a certain extent similar to the previously discussed lesson, i.e. this activity provokes creative thinking of students, though it is probably not always critical since they deal with symbols of their own and, thus, express their subjective views. This is why it is possible to recommend asking students to take into consideration the point of view of their peers in order to critically evaluate the symbols they have drawn. Also it is possible to recommend trying group work when students can critically evaluate each others symbols.
Furthermore, both lessons are characterized by involvement of art which though are quite helpful for the development of students verbalization skills since they have to either convert visual information into verbal one, as it is in the case of Mrs Cotter’s classroom, or, in contrast, they should convert the verbal information into visual one when students qualify visual image into their own words, as it is in the case of Mrs Brandon classroom, when students express their ideas in the form of paintings. In such a way, a multiple effect of development of creative and critical thinking along with verbal and communicative skills and abilities is achieved. In fact, students really learn the power of words .
3、Satisfaction of teaching 教學(xué)滿意度
However, it is not only students that benefit from such lessons but teachers as well. At the same time, it is necessary to remember that the high level of teaching satisfaction may be achieved only on the condition of high effectiveness of a lesson. Obviously, teaching satisfaction is extremely important since it stimulates teachers to constantly improve their skills and abilities trough acquisition of new experience. On the other hand, it is necessary to remember that satisfaction of teaching is mutual for both teachers and students and both benefit from it.
In this respect it is worthy to note that there are several basic satisfactions . First of all, it should be pointed out that teaching provides an opportunity for teacher to introduce to their students the idea that they can progress constantly and that education is a constant and uninterruptible process which lasts as long as life endures. In such a context both lessons may be considered to be quite successful since they establish strong connection of students teaching to arts which naturally will always accompany them in certain way. At the same time, such a combination of art and teaching contributes to the development of skills, such as creative thinking, which will be helpful in the future life of students. Moreover, students can realize that the skills they acquire in the lessons discussed could be widely used in their everyday life since both symbols and qualification of visual information along with its verbal interpretation are a constituent part of human life and are always used, even though they used unconsciously.#p#分頁標(biāo)題#e#
Another satisfaction of teaching is immortality. Applying this criterion to the lessons discussed it is again possible to remind that it is hardly possible to find something more immortal than art. In this respect, it is worthy of note that immortality implies not simply realization of eternity of life but it also implies the persistence of certain ideas and images that can be once learned and then get deep rooted in human mind. For instance, a successful qualification or symbol students in the lessons discussed have once found, or the image of teachers, and so on.
The latter, by the way, opens new opportunities for revealing another satisfaction of teaching – the performance. What is meant here is the fact that teaching provides teachers as well as students with ample opportunities to play their own cello. At the same time, it is necessary to underline that the role of teachers in such a situation is extremely important and, returning to the lessons by Mrs Cotter and Mrs Brandon, it is possible to estimate that Mrs Cotter provided freedom for students to perform their own cello practically without limitations, though this, as it has been already mentioned above, may be considered a kind of drawback because it brought up certain turbulence in the teaching process. Instead, Mrs Brandon, along with ample opportunities of performance, provided her students with a good organization of the lesson preserving sufficient control over the classroom.
Furthermore, teaching also provides ample opportunities for artistry and memorable forms of aesthetic experience that could be observed during both lessons discussed above. The importance of artistry in the teaching process can be hardly underestimated because it really contributes to the development of highly aesthetic, intellectual, and creative personalities. On the other hand, teachers also benefit from it because they really reach the balance and harmony in the teaching process through involvement of students into artistic work or sharing similar artistic values.
Also, it is necessary to remember that passion for learning is another important factor that contributes to the satisfaction of teaching. Unquestionably, if teachers manage to provoke a profound passion for learning in their students than it will be possible to state that they have achieved one of the major successes in teaching. In fact, passion for learning is probably the cornerstone of the development of students since it makes the learning process less difficult and often it may be achieved by means of implementation some interesting ideas in the teaching process. In this respect, the lessons discussed may be also assessed positively since they provoked profound interest of students to art and creative work, developed their critical thinking and communicative skills.
Finally, it is worthy of note that often teachers forget that the child made whole. The teachers whose work is analyzed obviously realize the importance of this idea because they do not limit themselves with certain learning material, or certain set of skills their students have to develop. Instead, they provide possibilities for creative work, intellectual, aesthetical and social development of their students.#p#分頁標(biāo)題#e#
4、Social skills 社會技能
Unquestionably, social skills are very important for effective development of students. In fact, social skills are the basis of the future life of students because they need to be naturally integrated into social life, they have to possess high communicative skills and abilities in order to constitute an integral part of the community they live in.
From this perspective, the lessons discussed are also quite effective because they provide students with ample opportunities to develop their social skills. To put it more precisely, they could better understand each others when they attempted to qualify the visual information they saw, or when they attempted to express their ideas and emotion by means of visual images which served as symbols.
At the same time, it is possible to recommend wider using of group work since it will make the development of social and communicative skills more efficient, while both teachers basically focused on the work with the whole class, depriving students of a possibility to work in groups of their peers and, consequently, minimizing opportunities to establish social links within such groups during the teaching process.
5、Types of teachers 教師類型
Naturally, willingly or not teachers play the defining role in the teaching process. This is why it is very important to clearly understand what a type of teacher could be the most effective in the current situation to the extent that such a teacher could achieve possibly better results in educating students. In fact, it is practically unarguable fact that every teacher is unique but, nonetheless, it is possible to classify all teachers into several types according to their style of work. At the same time, it is equally unarguable that the type of teaching produce a significant impact on the teaching process at large and on each lesson in particular, creating a particular relations between teacher and students.
Generally speaking, it is possible to single out three basic types of teachers. The first type is authoritarian. Traditionally, authoritarian teachers tend to plan furniture arrangements in the classroom and to plan schedules that seldom vary. Basically, such teachers believe that this is their sole responsibility to make all class rules and establish consequences for misbehavior.
The second type is permissive. Teachers that follow this style often appear to be tentative and powerless and, by the way, it is possible to say that Mrs Cotter tends to be one of representatives of such teaching style, which is obviously not the best one. In fact, typically for such teaching style Mrs Cotter made few rules and was inconsistent in establishing or delivering the consequences of misbehavior that led to the effect of loosing control over the classroom.
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Finally, there is a democratic type of teachers to which Mrs Brandon may be referred to. Traditionally, democratic teachers are neither permissive nor autocratic, instead they are firm and reasonably consistent about their expectations for academic achievement and students behavior. This is why, as Mrs Brandon has shown such teachers provide their students with certain freedom but do not loose the control over the situation and to do this they often discuss the need for rules with their students.
6、Conclusion 結(jié)論
Thus, taking into account all above mentioned, it is possible to conclude that teachers play an extremely important role in the process of education. In actuality, they can define the outcome of the teaching process and it is their responsibility to provide possibly more efficient development of students. As the analysis of the lessons discussed above has shown there are different types of teachers among which democratic one is the most effective one. At the same time, to achieve positive results in teaching it is necessary to provide harmonic development of students, including not only their intellectual but also aesthetic and social skills. Unquestionably, nowadays teachers should widely use art in the teaching process since, as both lessons demonstrate, it can really contribute to the development of students personality, especially their critical thinking, creative and verbal skills. On the other hand, the development of social skills was significant but potentially it could be more effective if group work was used. Anyway, such lessons should be viewed as an essential experience that provides opportunities for the further professional growth of those who want to become a good teacher.
7、Bibliography 參考文獻(xiàn):
1. Eby, J. Teaching Styles. 36 no7 139-45 Oc 2006.
2. Eisner E. The Satisfactions of Teaching. Educational Leadership 63 no6 44-6 Mr 2006.
3. Meier Catherine R., James C. DiPerna, Maryjo M. Oster. Importance of Social Skills in the Elementary Grades. Education and Treatment of Children 29 no3 409-19 Ag 2006.
4. Quinn, R. The Artistic Possibility of Words. Kappa Delta Pi Record 42 no2 88-91 Wint 2006.