Church Today

So...we're supposed to write about different speakers and how they teach at least twice....ya so church this morning.  Pastor Amy gave the sermon.  Now I must say I prefer Pastor Amy to some of the other pastors, but today her sermon just didn't do it for me.  It was all over the place and made absolutely no sense...it was something about her child wearing snow pants???? To be honest I really don't know...so that part of the service was really just not good...however there were some other things that were great "teaching moments" as my dad would say.

There was a song were the pastors just decided to let it all go and dance, we can never know if they were dancing because God told them to or what, but it lightened the "church" mood considerably.  It's just always great to see leaders/teachers just let go sometimes, go a little bit farther outside their comfort zone.  Pastor Mike did an excellent bird impression:)  I just really quite enjoy the "Authenticity" of the leaders/teachers at this school. 

More to come later on CAL and "the parade of conductors" (all of whom are GREAT teachers).

BYE!

Inventiveness (or rather Creativity)

So...long time...such is the life of a music major.  But anyway creativity...possibly one of the most important concepts to humans.  Although the most creative people never seem to be recognized as that during their life times, look at all the artists and composers that we now find to be quite splendid, but in their time were hardly noticed on the streets when they were begging like every other poor person for a scrap of food.  In today's world (except at Luther College) creativity is ignored and squashed.  Our schools forget that part of a child's normal development is creativity in their play.  We've put a grade on everything, every picture you draw must have some sort of written story to go with it.  Every song you sing must be sung well and in tune and have proper words.  Every time a band student picks up their instrument their teacher judges them on the progress they've made.  Even in the "adult" world, jobs have been placed under a money value system.  The highest paid people are for the most part the people that have boring jobs that do not require creativity.

However, that's stuff we all know, after all we grew up in that world.  I think the key to encouraging students to be creative is to first and foremost to just let them be kids.  You can't put a child in a classroom for 6 hours a day without an ounce of fun or creative outlet in that time period.  It just doesn't work.  I think that's common sense though.  Possibly less common is the idea of instilling in children that it's OK to be wrong.  Kids are terrified of failing today because such emphasis is placed on passing and succeeding.  But it is just peachy fine to be wrong sometimes.  It's OK to say "I don't know what I'm doing, but I'm going to draw this big blob on this paper and be proud of it."  Kids don't get the encouragement on their "creations" enough.  While their parents may put up the artwork that gets the highest grade on the wall, they don't put up that scribbling in the coloring book of Scooby Doo that the child did when they were just chilling.  This needs to change.

As for how important creativity is today...well...I could go on about how much music helps the world and brings us all together but I won't...  Creativity is important in the 21st century because there are now problems in this world that people five years ago didn't even know would happen.  We need creative people to find new sources of energy, to preserve our environment, to find ways to keep peace in the world...we need creative people to do a whole lot more now than to just create pretty music or pretty pictures...no now we need creativity to be practical perhaps this is the change in the mindset we need to change the negative views of being creative...just perhaps.

Passion

You know math teachers always get this bad name...like they are the most boring teachers on the face of the planet.  Well clearly you all never had a good math teacher.  I had 3, now I've had my bad ones as previously talked about, and one here at Luther, but the good ones...they are the only reason I ever wanted to continue working hard at least at math...you know the subject that we all dread.  Anyway, my favorite one was my junior and senior calculus teacher.  And maybe I liked her so much because it was a class with all my friends, but truly she made math interesting.  She was a woman teaching the highest level math offered at my high school and that inspired me.  She wanted to prove to us that we could do whatever we wanted in whatever we wanted.  It wasn't just about math with her...but she was passionate about math...she taught us how it applied to the outside world and so much more.

However, I have had my share of teachers that make their subjects so boring that it steers me away...but for some reason I'm just that person who likes to learn.   Other teachers told us we couldn't succeed at what they were doing...I still have teachers like that. 

I think that most of us benefit from having passionate teachers...but then again, I'm not sure it truly matters.  I never had a teacher who was passionate about music and encouraged us to explore all sorts of music until I came to Luther, and yet I was always planning to be a music major.  It's probably better for the teachers sanity if they are teaching something they are passionate about but as for the students...especially young ones, they don't even know what passion is, they just want to learn in a way that is fun and worthwhile.

In other news, I get coffee in less than 9 hours, beware Luther College.

Authentic

I think authenticity is a hard thing to explain.  It's about showing your personality and some people just so happen to have fake ones.  However, I think that's something that must be overcome when teaching kids.  Kids are the most observant people on this planet.  They know when you don't care about the work you're giving them.  They know when you're just there to earn the money not to help them become better people.


I've had a fair share of teachers who were clearly fake.  The worst teacher I ever had was my 8th grade Algebra teacher...she was horrid and to this day the 100 kids in that class still hate her.  She wasn't a hard grader and the work wasn't necessarily hard, but she was just not in it for the kids.  Now, i get there's not a lot of money in teaching, that would be why most teachers love their students, they're authentic! I can't give you a motive for why she was the way she was, but she just was ok.  So, if you're going to teach math you should maybe be able to add 2+2, ya?  Ya, she couldn't. FAILURE.  Anyway the worst part was she played off that she was like the smartest person in the school.  Always made us wonder if she was shunned in high school and that's why she desperately wanted to please all of us.  But yeah, she was an idiot and fake and she gave me a C because I corrected her numerous times in class (NOT COOL!).


Anyway, point is we all noticed and I can tell you that none of us learned anything from her that year.  Kids are only willing to put the effort into it if the teacher does the same.  Like busy work...ya know I always just handed it back into the teacher blank (the teachers thought I was rude, but spunky).  I think the most important thing about authenticity is that they try.  In every aspect of the classroom...to gain respect, to be themselves, etc.  My best teachers from high school were the ones I generally believed wanted me to do well, not just because they were funny.

Alright, end of rant. Bye!

Compassion

I think that compassion is a touchy thing and can actually in certain situations belittle the student.  But in my case, I believe it made me stronger.  My fifth grade teacher, Ms. Logan, inspired me because she cared enough to take the extra time...not extra time to explain things, but extra time in order to give me extra work and keep me working hard.  To this day I still keep in touch with her and help her almost every year when she sets up her room.  I think compassion is a hard thing to come by, but also a very hard thing to pinpoint.  Those who are compassionate are not necessarily that way all the time.  I think many people may say you only can show compassion towards those who are less fortunate and in this case younger than you.  I don't thing this is true, I think that even the student can show compassion towards the teacher and not just when something drastic happens in the teacher's life.

I realize that I am sort of rambling about this whole compassion thing and maybe I should go a little deeper into this story of Ms. Logan.  As I said I didn't need extra help in subjects, but I did need more to do and she took the time to find me extra books to read, and math problems to figure out.  She's one of the only teachers I've had that has gotten to know me.  She cared about me and all of her students...and she showed it.  She's the reason that I kept loving school always wanting to do the best I could to show her that I was still working as hard as she taught me I could.  I guess it wasn't all about the learning that year either...my uncle died that year and I missed a week of school and at that age when something you don't understand happens you need a way to let it out.  She helped me to write out all my feelings and make a book out of them.   She changed my life because she is a compassionate woman.

I think that every teacher must have some level of compassion..how else are they teachers?  There's a lot of things that make up what I would qualify as a good teacher...but my most highly rated would be caring while being careful not to pity.  I hope that many more teachers will realize that the kids have their own personalities too, even when they're really young....taking the time to get to know them is all it takes.

Respect

Dictionary.com defines 'respect'- "v. to hold in esteem or honor."  The definition is readily available to those who seek it and yet respect is such a difficult thing to understand and apply.  The line is many times quite fuzzy between disrespect and respect.  It all depends on the situation and the people involved.  Simple sayings help some remember how to respect other people such as "Treat others as you want to be treated."  Others brains go directly to the ever popular Aretha Franklin song "Respect."  For me respect is defined as a behavior toward others that is appropriate for the situation and also being tolerant of whatever response I get.

"Respect your elders," right?  Isn't that what we always say? So in a classroom the students must respect the teacher, right?  As long as I have been knowledgeable enough to debate this issue I have always come to the conclusion of wrong.  Just as with my peers if a teacher or other adult does not respect me I have absolutely no inherent reason to respect them.  In a classroom respect must go both ways...no matter how old the children or the teacher for that matter. I think that being said that respect does not ever look the exact same way in every classroom, rather it looks different between all depending on the subject and the students, just as students react toward their peers they react differently toward each of their teachers, and vice versa.  So, does respect necessarily mean the classroom is dead silent and every student is hurriedly scribbling down notes? No, it just means that everyone has the opportunity to learn something, including the teacher.

Respect in a classroom allows for a more equal chance to learn for all students.  For instance, if there's that one student (we've all had one) who just out right disrespects the teacher and yells out stupid things in class and makes a complete fool of themselves, he/she is detracting from the learning environment and disrespecting not only the teacher, but also his/her fellow peers.  However, disrespect from a student is far more tolerable in my opinion than a teacher being disrespectful towards a student.  Now, I realize I have already stated that if a teacher doesn't respect me I won't respect them, but I don't think as a teacher (as a person kids look up to, mostly) that it is ever right to disrespect a student whether provoked or not.  When that happens it creates an unpleasant environment and students will attempt to avoid the class at all costs.

Respect is always best established by doing exactly has the cliche says "treat others as you want to be treated."  A new teacher shouldn't walk in to a brand new class of students on the first day and be disrespectful towards them.  Bad first impression?  I think so!  However, if said teacher walked in with a positive attitude, a willingness to help, and an ability to communicate well with students on their level without belittling them or offending them; respect is automatically established.  Like everything else first impressions have a lot to do with how people react and interact with each other.  A good respectful impression is always the way to go!