Purpose of a Teacher

Posted: August 6th, 2013 | Author: Michael Goldstein | | No Comments »

What’s the purpose of a teacher during class?  There are many.  But for today, I’ll list 4.

1. Explainer.

In a typical math class, a teacher will explain new stuff that the kids don’t know.  “Here is how to find the slope of a line.”

A problem is that telling doesn’t work very well as the main strategy.

“Tell me and I forget. Teach me and I remember. Involve me and I learn.” — Benjamin Franklin

2. So that’s why a key role is: Questioner. To involve the kids in the process, to generate thinking.

“Greg, is this method the same or different than the Y = MX + b thing I showed you last week?  What’s different?  Sarah, do you see any clues on why these methods can each work?  Ah, yes, you pose a great question…how do we know this new method works.  Who can help Sarah?”

“Every truth has four corners: as a teacher I give you one corner, and it is for you to find the other three.” –Confucius

3. Effort Generator.  You can pose the questions, but unless kid tries hard, no learning.

“Aungar, stay with us here.  I need your eyes up here.  Folks, I want you all to tackle the next problem from the board.  I’m going to circulate.  Lauren, get your pencil moving.  Jamie, you know this, you can do it, I know you can.”

There are 2 kinds of teachers – those that fill you with so much quail shot you can’t move, and the kind that gives you a little prod behind and you jump to the skies. – Robert Frost

“The greatest sign of a success for a teacher…is to be able to say, “The children are now working as if I did not exist.” — Maria Montessori

4. Correct-er.  Once that student effort is there, and kids don’t fear mistakes, then correct as needed.

“Ah.  I am seeing a common misconception on your papers.  Perhaps I could have explained better.  Let me try again.   Everyone, eyes up here, let me point something out.”

So how does that pertain to being a Bridge teacher?

1. The teacher may not have had the benefit of a great formal education.  So the explaining part can be tough.  That’s where the scripts come in.  We can help put the teacher in a position to succeed, and also try to head off the instinct to “over-talk.”

2. Questioning — open-ended questions in particular, with multi-sentence answers, aren’t usually part of the teaching culture.  We hope to change that.  This is the biggest area where, we hope, the Boston team can help.

3. Generating effort in kids — our observation is that the kids in Kenya try very hard.  But whether they’ll keep it up as we pose tougher questions that they’re not used to, we shall see.  I suspect we’ll want teachers to build individual relationships and encourage kids as individuals, it’s such a human need.

4. Correct-er ….this is perhaps our biggest challenge….script can’t easily do it (hard to anticipate where students might go wrong)….but if teacher lacks subject knowledge, he can’t easily do it either.

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