Our Hometown
|
|
Greetings from Guam He who can, does. He who cannot, teaches. - George Bernard Shaw (18561950), Anglo-Irish playwright, critic Oops, wrong quote, let me try that again. What does education often do? It makes a straight-cut ditch of a free, meandering brook. - Henry David Thoreau (181762), U.S. philosopher, author Wait a minute...sorry, wrong again. I know I have a positive quote around here somewhere....here it is: A teacher affects eternity; he can never tell where his influence stops. - Henry B. Adams (18381918), U.S. historian. There we go, now we're cookin'. Because it is National Teacher Appreciation Week, I am going to babble on about education, teachers, and the art of teaching. Let me start by first telling you what some of my Simon Sanchez High School colleagues and I - and some students - did this past Saturday (September 25) - we cleaned our school. A little background info for you stateside readers. The Asian economic crisis has hurt Guam's economy in a big way, as we depend on tourism for our island's livelihood. And funding for education comes from tourism money, specifically, the Gross Receipts Tax ( a hidden tax on such items as airline tickets, hotel rooms, meals at restaurants, etc.). Therefore, with fewer tourists visiting our beautiful island, we have less money for education. Basically everyone is hurting here...except Exxon, Mobil, and Shell, who are now charging $1.72 and 9/10 for a gallon of the 87 octane. But other than those robber barons, times are tough. Our school of 2,000 students, 90 or so teachers, has only three custodians. And they are courageously fighting a losing battle. For example, some of our bathrooms have to be locked all the time because there just isn't the manpower to clean them, so the few that are open, are well-used (and probably also closed if OSHA or the EPA ever popped in for a surprise visit). Most of the teachers now have to clean their own rooms if they want them cleaned on a regular basis. Some accept that fact quietly and others complain. So, we solved the problem the only way we know how - to - have a barbecue. Students and teachers showed up at 9 a.m., with food and cleaning supplies, worked until noon and then feasted. We had three teachers manning the grills and the rest of us cleaned. We could have complained about our dismal custodial situation all year long, but without the funds to do something about it, it would have been a waste of breath. So, in typical Guam fashion, whenever there is a major problem, whether it be typhoons, earthquakes or anything else, people come together to help each other out. We did this not so much to clean our school or get together for a barbecue, but to say thanks to our overwhelmed custodians - whom we invited to the barbecue portion of our endeavor. It was such a success, we are going to do this once every quarter. One other item I wanted to mention regarding education was an article which originally appeared in the Los Angeles Times and was printed in the Sunday, September 26 edition of the Pacific Daily News. The gist of the article states that while education reformers are focusing on ways to improve student achievement scores on national standardized tests, via smaller class sizes, higher academic standards, greater accountability, and more diverse assessment tools, they are neglecting one important area - the classroom itself. I am personally fed up to my stinky rotten ears with new standards, rubrics, goals, assessments, and this newest educational trend over that one, which was the hot thing last year but now this is the way to go...blah, blah, blah! We spent a whole teacher staff development day going over new and improved goals and standards and matching them up with Department of Education standards and our own social studies department standards - all of which seems like the last five years to me. We've done this eighty million times already and each year, we revise the previous year's goals and standards with new ones and never ever end up implementing anything! Talk about a colossal waste of time. Regardless, this article talked about communication and sharing teaching techniques; what the successful teachers do in the classroom. A Harvard study compared American, Japanese, and German schools and teachers and what they were doing in the classrooms - not any standards, but the actual nitty gritty teaching techniques, such as American teachers' heavy emphasis on rote learning procedures and repetitive drills. Basically, saying that we tend to spoon feed information to students because it is fast and easy for teachers and students. The hope being that, if they are fed enough they will get it, when in reality the only thing the students learn is the shape of the spoon. Sure, they get it for enough time to do well on the teacher's test, but a year or two down the road, when they take some national standardized test, it has long been forgotten. Another example is in Japan and Taiwan, teachers have their desks clustered in one big room and they travel from classroom to classroom to teach (students stay in the same room all day and are visited by teachers). Having all the teachers' desks in one room fosters both formal and informal information sharing. American teachers are isolated in their own classrooms and also have this attitude of individualism which does not lend well to info sharing or team teaching - the proverbial 'master of my own domain' syndrome. It is an informative article and I will be happy to type it up and e-mail it to any interested teachers or the like. Finally, my own teaching tip to share: Arrange the students' desks in your classroom into the shape of a swirl - desks facing in towards the center of the swirl and have the teacher sit in the last desk in the center of the swirl. No one can break the swirl - all papers and such much be passed via the swirl. The closer you can pack the desks together the better. I just started this a day ago and it is great - it sounds really weird, and of course it is, but it fosters great interaction and participation. You become one of the students, right in the middle of the battle, as opposed to some detached dictator standing in front of them spewing out historical nonsense. And to all my former teachers, thank you for your kindness and wisdom...and to the nuns, thanks for the beatings. Hafa Adai Copyright © 1999 |
      Ads have a Patent Pending. Click Here for More Information  |
