25 Biggest Mistakes Teachers Make and How to Avoid Them (39 page)

A favorite source of recreation for many students is to get the teacher to go off on the proverbial tangent, in other words, to digress from the subject matter. Students find it more difficult to get experienced, prepared teachers to digress. This teacher was inexperienced and obviously unprepared. She presented very little challenge to students; as a matter of fact, she made it very easy for students to deviate from the subject matter. She totally abdicated her responsibilities as a teacher to talk about ghosts in her home. Perhaps she wanted to entertain her students, or there is always the possibility that she was mentally disturbed. Whatever the problem, she was not functioning as a competent teacher. She shifted her responsibilities to her student assistant. Her student suffered much psychological harm as a result.

Competent teachers know that first and foremost, they should put their students’ instructional needs before their own personal needs. Most teachers like to interact with their students. They are well aware that teachers should be friendly but not necessarily the students’ friend. Effective teachers will entertain their students occasionally but they realize that entertainment is no substitute for structure, organization, and quality instruction. These teachers will have instructional objectives that will keep them focused on the lesson and make it harder for students to distract them or direct them to some tangential topic. Finally, most conscientious teachers do their own teaching and rarely shift that responsibility to a student.

SCENARIO 17.9
Don’t Know Fall From Autumn

My worst experience was in kindergarten. I was asked, “What are the four seasons?” I replied, “Winter, Spring, Summer, Fall.” The teacher said, “No, it’s not Fall, it’s Autumn.” I was mortified and never went back. I wouldn’t tell my mother why I was so upset. It’s a wonder I learned to enjoy school when I started first grade the next year!

The student had a rather extreme reaction to the teacher correcting the student’s response to the question. Perhaps it was because the teacher’s “correct” answer was incorrect. Apparently, the teacher wasn’t aware that autumn and fall are used interchangeably. In the dictionary, autumn means fall
(American Heritage Dictionary
, 1992). If the teacher was aware that they were the same, she didn’t have to embarrass the student to express her preference. Experienced teachers would not have missed the opportunity to let the child know that fall is also referred to as autumn. However, those teachers would be savvy enough to praise the student’s response first and introduce the idea of autumn as a bit of extra information. An idea-friendly environment would encourage meaningful exchange of information between students and teachers. Students should be encouraged to give added information when it is appropriate. This scenario should encourage teachers to proceed with caution when correcting students with such absolute certainty. Good teachers are prepared to admit they are wrong if they make a mistake, or if they are not sure an answer is correct, they put it on hold until they can research it.

SCENARIO 17.10
Teaching Solo Students Can’t Hear You

I was in tenth grade. I had this teacher who was from somewhere else other than the United States. She always wore long sleeves and a long dress or pants. She also wore a scarf over her head. Her whole body was covered. Anyway, she had no control in the classroom. Everyone was always loud and she would teach from an overhead and talk so softly that no one could hear her. I did not learn geometry at all that semester. To this day I have a lot of trouble with it. She just did not know how to teach well.

Effective communication is a critical component of effective instruction. How can students learn if they can’t hear the lesson? Students can’t hear if the class is disorderly. Judging from the student’s account, the teacher had no control of her class. Her soft-spoken attempt at instruction was rejected by the students, as evidenced by the disorder and chaos and the lack of participation in the educational process. This teacher was truly
teaching solo. She lost her students when she opened her mouth and nothing came out but whispers and snatches of academic information.

Experienced teachers would use what’s commonly referred to in academia as the “teacher voice.” Developing this voice is an art that requires practice. A good teacher voice is audible, clear, purposeful, commanding, and can usually project across the room. Skilled teachers know that using the teacher voice appropriately minimizes discipline problems and effectively enhances instruction. Voice inflection, volume, accent will help communicate the teacher’s messages and desires to the students. Expert teachers are able to use their voices to command student attention and to communicate a no-nonsense approach to their lessons.

SCENARIO 17.11
The Incarceration of Originality

The worst experience ever with a teacher was in kindergarten when a substitute teacher asked me to color a worksheet that had a witch on it. I decided to color my witch orange. After I had finished coloring my picture I proudly went to show it to my substitute and she proceeded to tell me how ugly it was and that witches were supposed to be black, so she made me color it over in black.

Primary students are known to make nontraditional uses of color in their artwork. The proud student did some creative coloring and tried to share it with a teacher. Under the guise of a mindless art critic, the teacher assaulted the child’s competence and incarcerated her originality. She forced the student to change the bright orange witch to traditional black. She committed the ultimate sin of artistic evaluation: She called the student’s artwork ugly.

Diplomatic teachers know that it’s considered ill mannered and in bad taste to call an adult artist’s work ugly, so why say that to a child? These teachers know that beauty and ugliness are both in the eye of the beholder. Teachers who seek to inspire budding artists celebrate their freshness, creativity, and originality. They limit their criticism of children’s work because a budding Picasso may be among these children. Torrance (1972) found that teachers’ judgment of children’s artwork was not necessarily a good indicator of the creativity these children exhibited later in life. Astute teachers seek to foster creativity and encourage originality. They will encourage students to go where their vision takes them. These teachers embrace nonconformity and are amenable to divergence. Caring teachers seek to ignite and sustain the creative spark in all students.

Mistake

18

Poor Administration

SCENARIO 18.1
Duped Dancers

My worst memory of school was in high school, my sophomore year. That year I joined the drill team because the instructor said they were going to change the image by using dancers and better costumes. So they hired a guy to choreograph the dances and design the costumes. Well, the dances were just awful and when the first game came to be, no one had seen our costumes. At the first game, the guy gave us our costumes just before we were supposed to go on. Those costumes were ugly and didn’t fit anyone. The smallest one they could find to put on me still had to be wrapped around me three or four times. Everyone was so embarrassed that we thought we were going to die.

The drill team instructor did not live up to the students’ expectations. Perhaps he thought the dances and costumes were fine, but he did not have to wear them and perform in front of the crowd. The entire operation seemed poorly orchestrated. There was no evidence of either planning or preparation.

Experienced teachers know the value of planning. A lack of planning makes the outcome a product of chance and vulnerable to random happenings. Efficient instructors would not wait until the night of the performance to give students their costumes. They would order the costumes early enough to allow ample time for several fittings. An added benefit would be to allow students to vote on several designs before costumes are ordered. This same approach should be used for the dances. Student input would boost morale and possibly improve the quality of the dances. Finally, instructors should not make promises that they
cannot or do not intend to fulfill. In this case, the outcome was terrible. The instructor should have owned the mistake and given students the option of wearing the costumes or wearing something else. Forcing students to wear ugly, ill-fitting costumes at the last moment, leaving them no choice, undermines the instructor’s credibility and sense of integrity.