The Solemn Duty of Educating
Published: 2015-03-04 8:46 PM
Category: Teaching | Tags: comment, oath, reflection
Featured image is creative commons licensed ( BY ) flickr photo shared by Raed Mansour
The community is suffering. Students are frustrated and they’re looking to me to solve the problem. I’m faced with deciding whether or not my commitment to an individual students takes precedence over my commitment to the class as a whole.
creative commons licensed ( BY-NC-SA ) flickr photo shared by ShawnMichael
I mentioned earlier today in a tweet that Audrey Watters had a post back in January about applying the Hippocratic Oath (albeit, for education technology, but the application is the same) and it’s really stuck with me. I’d never read the oath, but now I have one printed and hanging next to my desk. I’ve started to re-purpose some of the lines in the 1964 rewrite of the Oath to apply a little more to my day to day work.
I think the first time I had a student leave my room was in my third year teaching. My temper doesn’t get pushed too much and I can usually let the little things roll on by. Small redirection and nuance have been powerful tools for me, and they’d worked relatively well. This year, though, it’s a whole different story. I don’t feel like I’ve given up hope that these students can learn or improve, but my toolbox is feeling more and more empty as I try more and more techniques to rein in the behaviors.
I really resist having students leave my room. Perhaps it’s hubris, perhaps it’s stubbornness. I refuse to fall into a habit of removing problems rather than resolving. However, at what point do we move on from individual situations and focus on the whole? Am I shirking responsibility as a teacher by relegating individual students to situations where learning is impossible? On the other hand, by keeping students in the room, am I relegating the whole class to the same fate?
creative commons licensed ( BY-NC-SA ) flickr photo shared by E.L. Malvaney
Finding nuance in a situation where patience feels like the enemy is difficult. The more time I take to try and weave a better plan together for individuals feels like time lost for the other 22 people in the room. I’m falling back on old habits and a bad attitude about students. My empathy is running out and I’m entering a realm where I’d rather have compliance than a real rich atmosphere for learning.
I realize that it’s the teacher’s burden to always remember the ones we lost – those we couldn’t connect with or engage. In the end, I’d love to have my cake and eat it, too. I think I can still do that – there are bright spots, and we celebrate those days. But, I’m responsible for the learning environment as a whole.
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