Each month, we at Tutorpedia come up with an education related question to pose to a group of tutors, teachers, school administrators, or counselors. We call it a "Roundtable Question." This is the first of many monthly installments of the Tutor Roundtable.
I sent out an e-mail with our first question:
What is the most important thing a student needs to learn in school?
Here is an interesting response:
"I taught in an inner city school for 2 years so my answer is more specific to this group of students. I think that looking back, one of the most important things for me to teach my students was morals/values. Although it is equally important to teach them basic skills so that they can succeed in the future, I found out through my experience that these lessons on skills were useless if students did not learn to value them. The parents of most of my students were hardly ever home to spend time with their children, thus I had to take on a parenting role as well as a teacher role. "
-Romina Kim
It's worth noting that this response focus on something other than just having students memorize facts, dates and other protocol. The most important part of an education to me is teaching my kids how to be better learners. At my school, we often stress that we want students to be "life-long learners." I try to accomplish this daily by making sure they complete the little things like copying important information on the board to help improve their note-taking skills. If they start to make connections between learning and real life, learning becomes easier and easier.
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1 comment:
I think this is a fantastic question to pose. It reminds me of a recent phenomenon: more recently, graduate programs have become significantly less concerned with an undergraduate student's particular major.
It's because being a successful student isn't just being a sponge. Being a successful student takes a certain desire, a hunger for academia that has to develop over time and exposure. As long as a student has that hunger, everything else will follow. Without it, education is aimless and devoid of purpose.
As for how one attains this hunger, the culture in which the student is introduced to academics is crucial. If your peers all like a certain television show, you'll be much more likely to watch it. Likewise, when peers and teachers and parents alike show genuine interest in learning, it's contagious.
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