Good advice to anyone - particularly to teachers and students.
Robert L. Fielding
www.rlfielding.com
Dialogue 1
Two teachers with varying views on teaching engage in a discussion to clarify certain points.
Robert L. Fielding: I listened to Bill Gates talking about improving teaching, and one or two things he said made me think.
Nick Lipley: Oh, I listened to that too. Was that the one where he let out some live mosquitoes into the auditorium?
RLF: Yes, that one. He began by talking about what can be done to alleviate the dire effects of diseases like malaria, and then he went on to talk about schooling around the world, and how to improve it so that more students go on to college and graduate with degrees and diplomas.
NL: Yes, I remember now. He mentioned how it seems that a lot of teachers could improve their techniques in the classroom.
RLF: He did, and I think we should all strive to improve.
NL: I think most, if not all teachers tacitly acknowledge that teacher training is a lifelong thing and doesn’t end when you leave grad school.
RLF: I think you are right. I know that I am constantly attempting to get through to my students, and to give them the help they need, and I think most conscientious teachers do the same. However, I thought some of his statements were a bit simplistic.
NL: What do you mean?
RLF: He seemed to be implying that there is a sort of one best way of teaching that we can all observe and learn from.
NL: What do you think?
RLF: That there are as many good ways of teaching something as there are teachers to teach it.
NL: I don’t know that I agree with you. There are surely techniques a teacher can learn – has already learned and put into practice.
RLF: That’s undoubtedly true. What I am saying is that I don’t think there is a sort of ‘one size fits all’ technique. You have to recognize what is involved in a classroom – particularly a language classroom like the ones I teach in.
NL: What do you mean? Can you give me examples?
RLF: Yes, of course. Well, for a start, each and every student brings his or her own persona into contact with everyone else’s in the classroom, including the teacher’s.
NL: Especially the teacher’s, I would say, since it is primarily the teacher the student is interacting with.
RLF: I cannot fully agree with you there. I think there is a lot of interaction between students as well as between students and teachers.
As I was saying, a lot of things are going on in the group – the teacher and his class – and most of it, I would say, is difficult to quantify in any real and meaningful sense. How one student reacts to one teacher surely involves a plethora of factors – psychological and linguistic, that are hardly understood, even by professors in those fields.
NL: What sort of things?
RLF: Well, to begin with, how a teacher is perceived by any one student will depend on a large number of factors, which we can’t go into in any real depth here today. Let me say that factors such as age – of both student and teacher, gender of both, nationality of both in the case of teachers working overseas, social class, and what I may call something like attraction.
NL: What do you mean by ‘attraction’?
RLF: I’m not even sure myself, but I would say that some students take to some teachers almost automatically, without any reason that is ever stated or understood, especially by those involved, and I would say it is almost as likely that a student can take a sort of instant dislike to a teacher, again for reasons that are entirely personal, most probably subjective, and most certainly unspoken or clearly understood by the person taking the instant dislike.
NL: I agree totally with that, and I think we are all guilty of it, if I can use the word ‘guilty’ without causing offence.
RLF: There, you have hit the nail on the head, as we say. Just one word misinterpreted or misheard, even, can initiate either a liking or a loathing. Even something like the tone of voice can swing relationships away or towards each other, particularly in those early stages when both have little to go on except looks, tone of voice and general demeanor.
NL: Exactly, and I will add that in those early days, it is impossible to know what is going on in the other person’s life. A teacher might be going through some family crisis, or have a health problem that is adversely affecting his or her performance and demeanor.
RLF: Precisely, so it is easy to see that the relationship between a teacher and a student can start badly or start well, on nothing more substantial than a look or a word.
NL: But surely, once a class has been running a day or two, things settle down and people find that they quite like their teachers after all, despite that bad first impression.
RLF: Of course students settle down. They get used to the sound of the teacher’s voice, his mannerisms. But, if a teacher is perceived as being a poor teacher or not caring about his students, students will inevitably lose interest or lose patience with their teacher.
Being a teacher is a wonderful job, but it is also a difficult one. On the one hand, a good teacher has to be on top of her subject – has to know it inside out, as we say, but more than that, she has to be able to get it across to students in ways they can understand, and she has to do it in ways that include everybody in the class.
NL: I agree, and I also think that being a really good teacher involves being a good teacher to those students who are either not interested, or can’t understand everything they hear as quickly as their colleagues.
RLF: You are exactly right. I will go one step further and say that being a good teacher involves reaching out and connecting with students who seem to find the teacher disagreeable. Teachers have to teach every student in their class – not just those who smile and look interested, and that’s the real challenge.
NL: What do you think teachers should take into account when they meet difficult students?
RLF: They should realize that a student is a person – that goes without saying – but in doing that, teachers should realize that the person sitting at the desk in class comes with all her emotional baggage – her feelings, her troubles and her needs. Young people’s minds are not merely blank slates upon a teacher writes, but rather they are minds already full of all sorts of knowledge and experience.
NL: Can you say what you mean here?
RLF: Yes, I mean that a child’s head is just as full of life as yours or mine. We sometimes tend to think that because young people haven’t spent as much time on Earth as you or I, that they don’t know anything – it simply isn’t true – they know everything, potentially, that everyone else knew at that stage.
What we as teachers should do is to tap into it in ways that integrate into their state of mind right now. If we talk down to them or treat them as though they were stupid, then we get what we deserve – poor students who underperform.
NL: So what you are saying is that teaching is bound up with psychology.
RLF: Yes, that and every other aspect of what being a human being – a young one – entails. That is why I say that a sort of ‘one size fits all’ type of methodology will not get result.
We can be taught the basics of teaching, but at the end of the day, we need to be able to apply what we have learned to each individual, even in a class of 20 students.
Robert L. Fielding
Dialogue 2
The discussion between two teachers, Robert Fielding and Nick Lipley continues here. You may recall that during their last discussion, both teachers came to the same conclusion; that the relationship between a teacher and a student is subject to the same difficulties and factors as any other relationship between two people – at first, at any rate.
Here, they go on to discuss such factors as the motivation of students and teachers, and how motivation, or lack of it in either person can wholly alter perceptions.
Robert L. Fielding: We have already more or less agreed that the relationship between a teacher and a student, in the early stages, at least, can be affected by what are generally looked upon as somewhat superficial considerations – the odd look or word said that might indicate one direction or other that the relationship will take in the short term, at least.
Nick Lipley: So you don’t think attitudes are fixed at this early stage, then.
RLF: What do you mean exactly?
NL: Nothing more than that if a student takes an instant dislike to a teacher, then that student will persist in that attitude and opinion.
RLF: Not at all. No more than I believe that any first impression, although admittedly sometimes powerful as one can sometimes be, lasts much longer than the first few meetings.
NL: So you would say that if contact continues, such adverse attitudes will disappear, or at least change?
RLF: I certainly hope so. If that were not so, we would all be doomed to judge people by that very first meeting. Whereas what I think actually happens is that people change their attitudes by the influence of other considerations – motivation being one of the most important ones.
If a student is set upon learning at all costs, as we say, then he or she will most likely come to a more realistic appraisal of a teacher, based upon more mature and lasting considerations than a look or a word, or the tone of a teacher’s voice.
NL: Yes, but if that teacher continues to address students in a tone of voice that is aggressive or dismissive or just plain rude, then the student is hardly likely to alter her opinion of that teacher, is she?
RLF: Certainly not, no! Teachers must always show due respect and consideration for those young people under their charge in the classroom. But don’t you see, a teacher addressing a student in a rude or otherwise inappropriate manner, would point very strongly to that teacher lacking the motivation to teach well. Motivation is a two-way thing, remember. Teachers rightly expect students to be motivated, but in turn it is right for a student to expect her teacher to be respectful – motivated to perform well. I think that is right, don’t you?
NL: You are absolutely right. A good teacher is only as good as the amount of motivation he has to teach well, and a good student is only as good as her motivation to learn.
Robert L. Fielding
