Response to "Is the Great American Teacher Dead?" - Week 2

 

By Rosa Siedschlag 

The John J. Ivers[1] article impacted my thoughts by its title, “Is the Great American Teacher Dead?” I never thought about that. On the whole, when people think about Education, they think that teachers will do their best to help students gain knowledge for their future life. By reading the article, I noticed that’s not really true because teachers, administrators, and politicians have different concepts of what great teaching constitutes.

What might be right and what could be wrong in the educative realm? A good question, isn’t it? According to Ivers, “Education is more than just exposing people to the facts. It is an acquisitional process that, without the proper delivery system, tends to fall flat”. Right, but what is the “proper delivery system”? It is the teachers' delivery way that consists of intertwining speaking and teaching with good communication.

Anthropologists from other nations who spent some time in the U.S. universities claim that these places are full of superficial ideologues.  Are they right? It’s necessary to remember that teachers come from different backgrounds, so they tend to present their points of view trying to change students’ paradigms. They lead “students to reflect upon his or her models of reality, raising him or her to new levels of consciousness”. I thought about this statement, and my thinking came back to my own experience while learning from my teachers. Some were great, and some were not. I needed to evaluate their words and choose what was best within my cultural model to keep it or change it according to my perception.

Thinking as a teacher, I agree with Ivers when he says that, “teachers should not fear to be a little more exciting, a little more courageous, a little more entertaining, a little more stimulating, and a little more inspiring.’ When I took my graduate school, I studied Transformative Education, which taught me to be committed to helping each student realize their full potential while in class. The acquisition of knowledge has more impact when it takes place in a good environment, where teachers and students feel confident doing their job.

In brief, even though some people say that the great American teacher is dead, we need to perform the activities required to carry out a good role by taking care of the troops, according to Ivers. In other words, let’s do our part to keep our mission of educating people for a better future.

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[1] John J. Ivers, Ph.D., is currently Dean of the College of Language & Letters, Brigham Young University, Idaho.