-One of Rousseau's ideas that influences school today is the thought that at the Pre-adolescence stage (12-15) the child should not know about those ideas that are beyond his grasp. Nowadays, when a student makes a question about sth. that is not in the syllabus, many teachers say 'This is a topic for next year,' or 'You cannot understand this now,' and go onto the topic of the day. I don't think this is because the teacher is lazy or not motivated enough to encourage students' curiosity. Perhaps many teachers don't believe in much 'going off track' because they feel the topic is too complex for the students.
-One idea I would like to consider when teaching is that teachers must take into account sex differences (though at all stages, not only at 20-25). With this I don't mean that we should favoured boys or girls, or foster stereotypes. We should pay attention to these differences and encourage students to respect and tolerate each other.
-I also like the idea of 'life as a playground.' I would like to provide an environment in which my students could experience by themselves and make sense of the environment in their own way, not always relying on the teacher. A teacher should cater for children's natural curiosity, thus allowing opportunities for learning.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
1 comment:
Hi Rodrigo!!
Having been myself a "reviewer" of Rousseau last year (you may remember my cutting open of Rousseau's head on the board's picture to let out his ideas), I'd say that due to the constant bombardment from the media and the Internet nowadays, it seems increasingly difficult for the teacher to apply the concept quoted in the first paragraph. Being myself a teacher of a 12-15 group, I find it quite fascinating to see how complicated it is to play the role of a "gentle sieve" between the real world and a given student's evolution. An answer to balance things out could be the 'Life as a playground' path, or 'Let life express Itself' as I always like to say.
This, for me, is the key to develop the educator side in all of us fledgling teachers.
See you, and have an excellent Friend's day!!!!
Pablo Pecorelli
Post a Comment