Without a vision, there will be chaos in our everyday personal and professional lives. This statement fits perfectly for the field of teaching. Even though the field of teaching is one of the most rewarding careers of this century as well as past centuries, it still has its many facets of using a multitude of teaching modalities within the education sector. The field of teaching and educating our young and adult learnes takes a lot of academic, personal, and professional discipline. We take on and play a multitude of roles in the classroom from the bed of the sandboxes in day care centers to the many party goers in the college setting. Some of the those roles includes playing mommy and daddy or playing the psychologist or even the pastor to pray and understand how our federal government and educational systems push our young through high school so that they won't be "left behind" (sacarsim).
As an educator, I have realized that the most important role that a teacher needs to play is how to drive their God given talent of using their CARS in the classroom whether online or face to face interaction. You are probably wondering why CAR is capitalized. To most of my English teachers, educators, and professors out there, there is a significant reason of breaking the capitalization rules for this particular point. Well, an educator needs to be a Credible witness in the classroom. The reason for an educator, whether young classroom teacher or college level to be a Credible witness is to closely observe the changing trends in the generation of today and the generation of yesterday. Speaking of my own experience over the years, my credibility came into play when I observed how our generations of young and the college level write, speak, and communicate with others. I recall a training that I conducted to adult learners in the agency where I am a Director of Education. After the training of a course, it is important for the learners, adults mind you, to take an assessment. Well one of the questions inquired about how documentation should be handled. The answer to the question was "factual and timely. One of the participants who finished the assessment very quickly had the correct answer, but spelled facutal as "faxchuwol." When I saw this, I almost brought up my dinner from the night before. LOL. At that particular moment, I realized that my credibility of being an eyewitness to the troubled times of writing, spelling, and speaking is a strong reflection of our personality and how we see the world. As educators, we also need to be Attentive. It is a vital component of the teaching genetic makeup to be Attentive in how educators present their teaching modalities, pedagogy, andragolgy, as well as other teaching methods in the classroom. Of course, every student whether young or old wants to be able to look at an instructor who is easy on the eyes, but being attractive in your teaching methods can have all of your students bringing you roses all of the time. Your teaching methods and how you present the information is imperative to the longetivity of learning for all learners.
When I teach my college students, I always bring a connection between their real world experiences and the content area. Most theorists believe that this particular component of connecting the curriculum with the content only exist at the elementary, middle, and high school level. However, other theorists, such as Howard McClusky, believed that his Margin of Theory, helps to bridge the gap between what adult learners learn in the classroom and how it relates to the outside world. Case and point: Reverting back to the elementary school level, my daughter brought home one of her Science test. Her overall score was not good, so I decided to analyze the content and the format of the exam as well as the questions. When I looked on the back of the exam, there were two questions. One of the questions inquired about "describe why the Grand Canyon is a great tourist attraction to you." When I looked at my daughter's answer, it was very vague. Her vaguness said to me that she did not understand the question. Therefore, I asked my daughter if she understood the word "describe". She said, "no." I also asked her if her teacher ever explained or taught any content area which asked you to describe something. My daughter said, "no". This led me to one conclusion. My conclusion was the teacher's deliver in instruction was not a top Attentive modality for the students to understand the word "describe." Even though my daughter has a responsibility of asking about the word describe; however, all teachers should know that we should never assume about what our students know and what they don't know. From there, I decided to help my daughter to understand the word "describe." I took a water bottle and I asked her "What is this?" She correctly responded by saying that "it's a water bottle." I said, "okay, how tall is the water bottle, what colors can you point out on the label of the water bottle, how clear is the water in the bottle, etc?" From there, I asked her to describe the cover of her SIMS 2 game package. Once I tapped into this, she began to understand how to describe something. Relevancy to the content by connecting it with real world experiences is highly correlated to how students respond to the content at any age level.
Last but not least, the last letter of CA is the R. A teacher needs to have Realistic objectives in the classroom in order to have successful outcomes. When Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. gave his "I Have a Dream Speech" years ago, I can only assume that he knew that his dream would probably not become a true reality or even look at it as a measureable outcome. This is how I see the difference between realistic goals and realistic objectives. To have a realistic goal is like having a dream come true. Even in Disney world, dreams do not come true. Since goals have a tendency to change over time, they should not be categorized as being realistic. Therefore, when teachers have measureable objectives instead of measureable goals in the classroom, they will be able deliver their instruction in effective ways. Case and point: Here is an example of a measureable realistc objective for any classroom: "At the conclusion of the 8th grade English class, the students will be able to identify and define the parts of speech in 10 sentences without the use of their textbooks at a rate of 90%. With this particular measureable and realistic objective, it allows the students to have high expectations for themselves in the classroom. The students would know what to do, when to do it, and how to do it. However, it is up to the teacher, who is credible in their observance of their students and attractive in their deliever to ensure that the students understand the concept and the task, to help the students along in their path of success. This objective is realistic to reach in any classroom.
In conclusion, every teacher/college professor is an educational leader in the classroom, but in order to be an effective educational leader in your own write, it is important to drive that CAR (Credible, Attentive, and Realistic) at its highest acceleration in the classroom for the future success of all of our learners of the world.
