Friday, January 13, 2012
What is Education?
On Tuesday night I said education was a set of survival skills. I truly believe that educating someone is teaching them skills that will better their life. I'm currently teaching physics at a high school. We're currently working on Newton's Laws of Motion. It's been challenging to say the least since I majored in biology. For a long time the kids kept complaining, "Miss, why do we have to learn this? I'm never gonna use physics." I kept trying to give them examples of where physics is applicable: driving, moving objects, throwing things, sports, etc. Some of them kind of bought into the idea but not many. Since I gave my answer in class on Tuesday I started thinking about what I was doing. Am I teaching these kids survival skills? Are they ever really gonna realize that physics is all around them? Then yesterday in sixth period one of my students kept thrusting his pen downward. I walked up to him and said, "what are you doing?" He looked at me and said, "Miss.... Inertia. I'm trying to get the ink in my pen down towards the tip." At that moment I realized I was teaching them skills they could use.
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We started our jobs at about the same time and in very similar situations, so I feel that I can somewhat relate to your comment in class etc.
ReplyDeleteI pretty much agreed with you the other night when we were talking about what education was to us, and I thought about what we had been talking about too.
It brought a huge smile to my face when I read what your student said to you concerning inertia and his pen. To me that’s just awesome! It’s the best feeling when you have been trying and trying to get a point across and someone in your class makes a connection between what they are doing and what you are teaching.
There have been many times that I have thought, “am I really teaching them something they can use? Am I actually relating this to their experiences?” I have found that for me, sometimes it’s difficult to relate Nuclear Equations to their experiences so I end up telling them stories or trying to do something kind of strange that they will remember and then relate to whatever it is I am trying to teach them.
Hello Cecilia,
ReplyDeleteI would agree that when we teach we sometimes teach skills, but not all the time. In the example you gave, I would guess that some other kid with no knowledge of Newtonian mechanics could know that the thrusting of the pen helps with the flowing of the ink. I think that what you actually taught this kids is another way to think about his experience. And I'm sure that at some point that will come in handy.