Sunday, February 23, 2014

A Major Omission in my Teaching Career

      In my last post I asked a question about relations. Since I know the people who comment on my blog, I knew I would get all kinds of information and well thought out opinion. You didn't let me down.Thanks!

    With all the great replies I got from answering one little question I began to reflect on my teaching career. I have three previous posts where I reflected on my career. In methods classes we were drilled on questioning technique. The answers I got from you made me think that if the students had asked questions it might have been more effective. Students did not ask many questions and they were not really encouraged to ask questions. As a result kids didn't think that much and just slavishly learned the material, got good marks and then promptly forgot everything.

     Now students should have been encouraged to ask questions and then be guided to do research and find answers. Today teachers set up lessons that have kids do activities and the result of the activities would teach the student a concept. I admire how teachers teach today.

   Now I did have a situation where kids were encouraged to ask questions. I taught health and in the human relationship sections there was the infamous question box where kids could ask an anonymous question. Of course, the question box was some what abused. You can imagine that with gr.8 and 9's they could think of all kinds of questions. They were all answered with a fairly straight face. I think some real learning took place. It made me work harder.

    So the next thing I want to know, I will just ask a question at the end of the post. I've got lots of things I would like to know and find out. Are you ready?