Blog Assignment 10

To Teach Or To Educate? That is the question.

Since I first knew that I wanted to go into the field of education I knew I wanted to be different. I am continuously told that it not the smart, economically secure path to take. That is not why I  chose it. I am not entering the field of education for summer vacations and good insurance. I am entering to show the youth of today that no matter what, that they do matter. When we decide to enter into the College of Education we are responsible for not only ourselves any more. The College of Education is not called the College of Teaching, and I think there is a reason for that. I have chosen to become an educator not a teacher.

In the video, Do you Teach or do you Educate?, it shows the difference between the two. So many chose to only teach, and they wear the name teacher proudly. I can not be that person. My path into the education world will be much different from many of my peers. Most will have their own classroom and teach a certain subject all day. I will most likely be in those educators classrooms walking around helping those students that need that little extra guidance. My students will not just be A or B students. My students will be blind, deaf, in wheelchairs, autistic, LD, and much more. My students can not simply have a teacher to show them a math problem. These students will need me to guide them as well as the others responsible for educating them. Many of these students will need someone to take that extra time. Education does not end inside the classroom and special needs children need to know that more than anyone.
I can not say that I will have relay races and scavenger hunts using questions to help prepare students for test. I can not say I will have students play baseball to understand physics, or make edible cells to understand biology. I can say that I will guide these students to better understand the subject that they are learning. I will help them form their own identity and beliefs so that they may create their own future. I want my students to challenge the information that is given to them. I want them to ask is this the only way to solve this math problem or why are our laws so restricting when we have the Constitution? I want them to be curious and ask hundreds of questions. I may not be able to answer their questions; however I can guide them to the thoughts and ideas of others so that they may discover what they are looking for. I want them to form a hunger for the world around them and embrace education.


Danger: Pencils Ahead
John Spencer’s blog post gave me a lot to think about as a future educator. Don’t Let Them Take Pencils Home, is a story that is one we face daily in the world of education. I decided to really do some research about the effect that pencils have in education. The results I found were really intriguing to me. In Mr. Spencer’s post he was having a discussion with another teacher about the dangers of pencils going home with students. It was hard for me to understand why anyone would not want a child to have a pencil at home. Mr. Spencer seemed to have a problem understanding this too. In the end the other teacher was only worried about her test scores. Mr. Spencer was more worried about the learning of his students.
We are going to face challenges and problems when it comes to the way we educate students. What separates the good educators from the bad is how we face those challenges. Mr. Spencer looked at the pencil as more than just a tool for students to take test with. This is what I focused on when I decided to do some digging. I know this might seem a little strange where I am going with this post but this is what really inspired me. I went  to Google and typed in, “pencils and education” the results that came up were not what I expected. There was one article that really caught my eye, The secret of school success lies partly in the pencil case. It seemed strange to me how a pencil case could help with your success in school. A newspaper called The Independent which is located in London, were the ones responsible for the article. The beliefs of the article were that the types of writing tools students carried in a pencil case were essential. It gave examples how if a student did not have a pencil sharpener that it could be devastating. That too many colors could distract students from the real task. Erasers needed to be big and work because students otherwise would form sloppy handwriting. What really got me was the article even gave how students should have fingers positioned to write. My favorite comment was these exact words, “Wax crayons should be left at home in the cupboard.” This reminded me of the teacher that Mr. Spencer encountered. The reason for not wanting children to use crayons was because they would scribble with them causing their handwriting later to be messy. As an adult I  think back to preschool and kindergarten and  how coloring was my favorite activity. I remember getting so happy when I would get a big sticker because I stayed in the lines and colored neatly. So, it does not matter whether it is a pencil being used to play hangman and writing to pen pals or a crayon that is blunt and will cause messy writing there are teachers that always want to find blame for the way students are performing; instead of looking at what they could to to better educate students.
I looked for something that would truly point out that pencils were damaging test scores but I came up unsuccessful. I found a few places that mentioned that test taking scores on computers were slightly higher but nothing drastic. I feel as educators we sometimes rely on pencils as tools solely for completing work and test. What if, instead of making pencils only for test taking and writing long papers we embraced the pencil and had fun with it. Why not play hangman? Have students using vocabulary or spelling words get into groups and play the game. When I researched pencils and education I found that pencils were used more as a symbol of education. Many edcators embraced them as a symbol of learning and providing resources for students.

Pencils.com is a site that sells different school supplies and 3% of it sells go to partner charities to help schools out. They also have resources for parents, teachers, and students to do research as well as fun activities for inside the classroom. Harriete Estel Berman even created a giant bell-curve sculpture out of pencils to make a point about standardized test. She embraces the pencil and feels that it is a powerful tool that should be used for more than just testing. There are so many more sights that show the pencil as a symbol of education.
I feel as if Mr. Spencer had the right idea. We should not be looking for problems within the tools we are given to educate students instead we should find ways to better use the tools we are given, in order to increase the education of our students. We are the educators and we should be using whatever tools we are given whether it is pencils, crayons, or computers. Lets get our creative juices flowing and start educating our students and stop blaming the world around us for their lack of interest.