I have seemingly endless patience with young people of all ages. What can I say, I see hope in them so I try to support it and teach instead of judge. What would I have done at that age, I ask myself. Well, I sure as shit wouldn't have made excuses for myself so, why am I making excuses for them? Because we don't all grow at the same speed and I try to factor that in. I always try to bring understanding to the table. That's why it's pretty important to comprehend at least some details from a student's background.
Admittedly, the little bastards get under my skin and I'm known to administer a little tough love here and there. We don't all function the same way. We don't learn the same way. Some people are auditory learners while others are more visual. It gets really complicated when they throw in all the learning styles and I have to cater to the proportions of the individual. 20% visual, 40% auditory, 15% kinesthetic, and 35% reading/writing, for example. To gauge the correct proportions can be complicated. No two people are alike and this example is rudimentary for argument's sake. It's much more complicated than that.
I also factor in personality types because not all personalities are prone to absorbing certain teaching styles which means I alter my teaching style to suit the student rather than asking the student to conform to my way of teaching. In other words, I try to give them what they need. But when I don't have enough information about someone, that magic formula is near-impossible to conjure. I'm not a miracle worker.
I never went into public education because I find it incorrect to teach in such a small box when each person requires something as unique as they are. I stayed in the private sector because it allowed us all to learn how to improve the system. I learn as much from my "students" as they do from me. Student is a loose term in my world. Sometimes those people were friends, colleagues, mentors, and so forth. Sometimes they were actual kid students, lol. I've been down a lot of roads. The point is that we are all teachers and students in the game of life. We can all learn something from each other so, by no means do I mean student in a derogatory fashion. I'm not implying that they are beneath my level in some way, as I've seen some people do. The teacher is equal to the student in that the student is also a teacher. It's a symbiotic relationship, unlike what public schools demonstrate.
Just because I know more about one strand of life and can offer an education there, doesn't mean the other person can't do the same on a different strand. We can still be equal wholes whilst having unequal pieces, if that makes any sense. One apple can be divided into fourths and another into fifths but both still be whole apples. People are whole apples, but their proportions differ. To teach well, you must understand the student's proportions. Some people go out of their way to make success impossible. Try harder.
Teaching is undoubtedly a challenging thing. In society, its value has become grossly underestimated because the quality of the profession has gone down with the Titanic, imo. I'm not blaming individual teachers so much as the nature of the system and its incomprehensive conformity. Dear society: Clearly, that's not the way to go. I'm not saying conformity doesn't work to some degree. It can be effective, but it creates a much greater division among social classes and that's a dangerous place to land on larger scales. The majority suffers.
There are better ways, and feasible ways, to improve the system so that more people win. The paradox is that the changes rest within the broken system itself, so where do we begin? For starters, we begin by acknowledging that changes need to be made, not by pointing fingers, then implementing potential solutions for larger-scale testing with one school system, then expanding into the spread of the new way.
Take Common Core Math, for example. They tried to implement a new way of teaching math to children in public schools. The parents didn't get it because they were never taught that way of thinking. The teachers didn't get it because they also were not taught that way of thinking, yet they were expected to teach it and everyone landed in a world of confusion, blamed the system, and gave up. XXX WRONG. You all fail!
The right way to do it would have been to educate the teachers, give them time to adapt to the change so that they are equipped to share it, then show the children whist offering online resources where they can go for help rather than putting it on the "uneducated" parents and expecting magic to happen. We should not have given up on Common Core. It is indisputably a more efficient way of doing math, but also of thinking which is something that will come in handy for all the younger generations moving into the space age. By giving up, we did them a great disservice. Way to set an example, adults! Booo!
We can do better, but better takes work and people are lazy af. Go ahead, lie to me. As if I haven't seen a thing or two. As soon as something requiring work comes around, they just give up and run away. Sianara, then. You don't deserve the other side. What did you do to earn it? As if good things come for free! Everyone talks about a better world, but how many are willing to fight for it? They judge its inadequacies, but how many are stepping up to change it? Just sit on the couch and whine about it, why don't ya?
See that tough love coming through? No one likes that shit. So fucken what? Some of you need to hear it anyway! If you responded to alternative methods, it wouldn't have to be so hard. Just sayin'.
