Pedagogy
Pedagogy is defined by the Miriam Webster Dictionary as: “the art, science, or profession of teaching."
Giving some thought to the definition, and examining each of the terms:
- Profession - Teachers are professionals.
They are the guardians and the soldiers on the front lines in the battle against
complacency and ignorance. As a teacher
I believe that my mission is to educate our children academically as well as to
provide them with life skills for survival in an ever changing world. I take my mission seriously as I believe all
teachers should and vow to do my best for my students' success and the future
of our country.
- Science-The Science of teaching revolves around many disciplines. The
most important of these in my opinion is the psychology and the interaction
between teachers and their students. As
the school year progresses, the connections between students and teachers
begins to form. It is as if a new bi-directional fiber optic connection is
created each day and the lines of communication become less and less attenuated
as the school year goes on. The teacher learns about the student’s learning
style, personality, and interests. This
interaction provides the teacher with the knowledge that he or she needs to tailor
his or her methodology to each and every student in the class. This exchange along with other data
accumulated from assessments, performance on homework, projects and classroom
behavior, allows the teacher to truly learn about his or her students and to
hone in on better methods for teaching the curriculum to a variety of
personalities and learning styles.
- The Art – This aspect of pedagogy is probably the most fragile and threatened
by the new standards based movement in education today. I say this because I have witnessed how State
and Federal initiatives, while they are good hearted attempts to grasp the ever
changing environment of the public school system, have on some level also tried
to formalize the methodology of teaching into a formulaic framework bound by
the type of "inside the box" constraints on creativity that mimic any
number of boilerplate authors such as Danielle Steel or Ian Fleming. Indeed the “Art” of teaching is under attack -
perhaps unwittingly and not by design, but it is crucial that bureaucrats are
cautious with the introduction of new initiatives to avoid the decimation of
the creative process which is after all at the very heat of true learning.
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