Blog Post #10

Do You Teach or Do You Educate?
This video compares and contrasts a teacher and an educator. It talks about the teacher first and gives a few simple definitions: to show or explain how to do something, encourage someone to accept as a fact or principle, give information about or instruction in, cause someone to learn or understand something, and to induce by example or punishment to do or not do something. Then it gives a few examples of an educator: enlighten, inspire, empower; one who gives intellectual, moral, and social instruction; an experienced and trusted advisor; and a person who advises and shows the way.

I wanted to become a teacher because I love learning new things, and I love to teach others what I know. I can honestly say, I now know that there is way more to teaching than just throwing information at students. After watching this video I can see that there is a big difference between being a teacher and being an educator. I fully intend on being an educator. I want to enlighten, inspire, and empower my students and I want them to trust me. Trust is big when it comes to your students, especially if you are an educator. I want to be able to educate my students on how to learn independently so that they can continue learning even when I am not around. I want them to be proficient in finding accurate and useful information on their own. My students need to trust me to lead them in the right direction and show them how to do this correctly. To be an educator, I plan on getting to know my students well and doing everything in my power to show them that learning can be fun in the classroom and independently.

Don't Let Them Take the Pencils Home
This post was entertaining, yet it is sad to know that this stuff really happens. Gertrude, the "School Curriculum Instructional Interventionist Academic Specialist" storms into Tom's classroom ranting about PENCILS. She read in a journal article that it is proven that students who take home pencils do poorer on standardized tests. She tells him that he has to stop letting his kids take pencils home. Instead of giving in to her absurd wishes, Tom lets her know his view of the issue. He believes that students can go home with pencils and whether or not they are "playing hangman" or doing homework, they are still learning. Their brains are still working with some sort of creativity.

His argument is simple. It should not matter how children learn, as long as they are learning. I think it goes back to our everyday discussions about technology. A lot of teachers feel the same way about technology. It is just a tool that distracts students from learning. When in reality it is one of the children's best tools for learning. We should not take something away from our students that is such a big part of their learning environment. We should find a solution to the problem, which is usually being creative and finding a way for your students to learn effectively, while having fun and staying interested. This is essentially what Tom did and there is no need to make an argument against that. I think his argument could work well whether we are talking about a pencil, or an ipad.