Apprenticeship observation OR Role
modeling
Comparison with all different kinds of
profession, teaching profession plays vital role in society. Teachers upbring
almost every single human being starting from scientists to president and
releases all kind of future specialists. Teachers become multitasking person
who amazingly handle the entire task at the same time including teaching,
delivering, upbringing like our second mother, and helping etc. During that
time, they present themselves as role models and I have seen different kind of
teachers who influenced me in my life long process.
As
most children at school admire their teachers as a model of amazing profession,
I had a teacher who could illustrate the ideal individuality of a teacher too.
She was my primary teacher who taught for 4 years and she was the one who gave
us basic knowledge of learning. Undoubtedly, my first teacher is my first
source of knowledge and model of great teacher in the world. She had a kind
nature who could found the key to each individual heart in the classroom, moreover
she was patient even if everybody was failed by making mistakes and never gave
up. As an example, one boy in our class was afraid to make mistakes while
handwriting and he cried when he did something wrong. So, my teacher could help
him calm down and said “If you cannot let yourself make mistakes, you cannot
reach success. It is all right that you made mistake, try again”. During my
play time I was imitating her through repeating her actions in the class.
Mewborn & Tyminski (2006) pointed out very good example from Lortie`s
apprenticeship of observation by saying that “students are on the receiving end
of what teachers do and are therefore only in a position to notice teachers’ actions
and their influence on them as students” (p. 1). Correspondingly, these motions
brought as a first steps towards dreaming to become teacher.
In
secondary school, we had different teachers with different subjects. Every
subject teacher left different impressions in their classrooms. As one of the
example, my history teacher organized “Intellectual game of 21st
century” on history, and she cheated by giving all the answers to one of his
favorite student. After all, that student won the 1st place. As
favoritism is one of the widespread types of corruption, it would not be ideal
teacher behavior.
The next teacher who I would like to
emphasize on was a professor of Russian language in my University. She was
always ready to help students and paid attention to relate social activities to
the class assignments. I remember, she loved theater and always told us “Guys,
theatre is miracle!” and we used to go to theatres and write brief story about
the play in Russian. Since that time, I go to theatre regularly and I love it!
Oppositely, during my last year at
University, I met a professor who was supposed to be my supervisor. I don`t
remember how I survived but she did not help me at all, asked me to come to her
apartment and bring the most expensive ice-cream. She was doing exercise when I
came to her and finished it just before I left. I was so scared when she shouts
at me, criticized my thesis work, and said good bye. Fortunately, after for a
while my supervisor was changed to another professor. They were the teachers
who teach future teachers by being example based on their behaviors.
I also found professors in NUGSE being model
in high level of professionalism. Even if it is the way how they teach, what
method they use, and how they treat Master students it remains as a great role
modeling for most of them. I would like to highlight one professor who had big
impact on realizing potentials in students. This professor`s class was full of
interaction, discussions, and collaboration. In other words, he was able to
make students think and analyze what they have been reading without any pushing
and favoritism; he managed his class very smoothly and enjoyably. With the help
of that professor, most of my group mates including me could understand a teacher`s
professional identity. What I recognized is that we need to keep passing “valuable”
experience on and keep being role model for others.
References
Thank you for this post, Shynar. In fact, I was not simply astonished to read about your thesis supervisor at university, but extremely shocked to learn how some professors can exploit students and misuse their professional status. I agree that it is extremely important for faculty, especially in pre-service teacher training programs, to serve as role models and set the high criteria for the excellence. After interviewing teacher students for my research, I found that most of them were dissatisfied with the level of teaching in their universities. Faculty incompetence, passive approaches and ignorance were the most-cited reasons why many of these students were discouraged to work as teachers upon graduation. Therefore, there is a high responsibility posed to teachers in educating future generation of teachers.
ReplyDelete