9/24/2020; Week 02: Response to "Is the Great American Teacher Dead?"

Is the Great American Teacher Dead? That's the great question, posed by John J. Ivers in his article published in the Journal of Invitational Theory and Practice, in 2012. Here we are, 8 years later, and it's a question more important today than it was then. 

In our world of Coronavirus and online learning, the ability to teach is no longer just about keeping students engaged. It's about being able to pivot and communicate. In the article, John Ivers says "Public speaking and teaching are cousins. At the core of both is communication." This is more true today than ever before. On an online platform like Zoom, being able to communicate effectively is more important than even in person teaching. This is something that I know I will need to work through as I become closer to being a teacher. 

Another quote from the article struck me. "Every time a teacher walks into a classroom he or she should take their craft as seriously as a Shakespearean actor entering the stage." I had never really thought of being a teacher in terms of science vs artist, but it's true that there are almost scientific processes to helping teaching be more effective. These include things like the 10 minute rule, delivery and variety, but teaching is more than that. These students are human beings, with their own lives and needs. Science is really good at looking at the broad, the things that are the same across the board, but where science falls behind is in the individual. Teachers have to be both scientists and artists. It's about doing what you can with the scientific steps, but also understanding that these students are humans. 

I think John Ivers said it best. "Even though we may never be able to perfectly quantify good teaching, if we do our best to align ourselves with the principles of sound instruction such as meaningfulness, metacognition, Transformative Education, cultural introspection, cross-cultural exploration, brain research, Invitational Education, and human universals, we will, at least, be doing our best to take care of our students as they march off to engage the many hostilities and challenges of life." Being a teacher is about so much more than just learning. It's about the human experience.