Thought for the Day
“Forget Robert Donat or Peter
O’Toole in Goodbye Mr. Chips, Sidney Poitier in To Sir
with Love, Edward James Olmos in Stand and Deliver, Robin Williams in Dead
Poets Society, Jon Voight in Conrack, Richard Dreyfuss in Mr.
Holland’s Opus, Michelle Pfeiffer in Dangerous Minds, or
Kevin Kline in The Emperor’s Club.
These are excellent fictional
portrayals of powerful individuals whose personal authenticity and pedagogic
brilliance illuminate the mediocrity surrounding them. But they are bad role
models (at least for me).
Teaching is not about
charismatically charged individuals using the sheer force of their characters
and personalities to wreak lifelong transformations in students’ lives. It’s
about finding ways to promote the day-to-day, incremental gains that students
make as they try to understand ideas, grasp concepts, assimilate knowledge and
develop new skills.
All the small things you do to make
this happen for students represent the real story of teaching. Helping learning
is what makes you truly heroic.” (p. 278)
Reference: Brookfield, S. D. (2006). The Skillful Teacher: On Technique, Trust, and
Responsiveness in the Classroom. 2nd ed. San Francisco:
Jossey-Bass.
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