THE TEN COMMANDMENTS FOR TEACHERS

Over at A Difference by Darren Kuropatwa there was discussion that was similar to my recent post of Learning Now. At least it reminded me of that post.  
Darren talks about reading George Polya’s 10 Commandments for Teachers and how that has affected his teaching. 

THE TEN COMMANDMENTS FOR TEACHERS

In chapter 14 of Mathematical Discovery Polya lists his Ten Commandments For Teachers. They have been a guiding light for me as a teacher since I first read them.

1. Be interested in your subject.
2. Know your subject.
3. Know about the ways of learning: The best way to learn anything is to discover it by yourself.
4. Try to read the faces of your students, try to see their expectations and difficulties, put yourself in their place.
5. Give them not only information, but "know-how," attitudes of mind, the habit of methodical work.
6. Let them learn guessing.
7. Let them learn proving.
8. Look out for such features of the problem at hand as may be useful in solving the problems to come — try to disclose the general pattern that lies behind the present concrete situation.
9. Do not give away your whole secret at once — let the students guess before you tell it — let them find out by themselves as much as is feasible.
10. Suggest it, do not force it down their throats.

Darren continues

Polya identifies the single most powerful and infallible teaching method: "If the teacher is bored by what he is teaching it is a certainty that all his students will be too." I believe the inverse is also true: If a teacher is interested in what they are teaching their students will be too. Actually, "interest" by itself may not be enough; passion is a virus. There is a contagion in passion that can be passed on. I would rewrite Polya's first commandment as: "Be passionate about your subject." If you can't do that then I guess interest will have to do but if you don't have even that, do something else.

Passion for teaching is very important. Passion for learning is very important. Teachers must show a passion for what they are teaching. 

When students see that teachers are passionate about their subject, passionate about learning, then the students will see a reason to learn.

Teachers who are passionate about learning do not always get every page of the curriculum finished, but their students can carry on the learning on their own, for the rest of their lives.

Rather than making good marks on a true-false/multiple choice test at the end of each grade, students progress should be measured by how well they know how to learn, how well they can compete for the job that they have a passion for, how well they can convey that passion to their customers when they have that job.  These are true measures of learning and value.  We are not trying to prepare our students of the 21st century to be able to spout facts verbatim when asked.  We are preparing them for their futures, their lives, their livelihoods. 

If we, as teachers, can ignite a passion in our students to learn, to know how to learn, to know when it is necessary to learn more, we have succeeded as teachers, no matter what the test scores say.

How do you show

your passion for life,

for learning, and for teaching

so that your students know

its importance

in their own lives?

[As always, in my author quotes, the underlines, color changes, and bold type is mine, not the author’s!]

Technorati Tags: learning,passions,life,education,Darren Kuropatwa,George Polya

Fall …. Sunset in the Mountains

Either I am getting wobbly with my hands, my camera is set wrong, or my camera is dying a  slow death… Nevertheless, I persevered and got an interesting fall sunset photo…  or two.  It was beautiful and the weather is beautiful, cool, but nowhere near COLD.

Enjoy these last beautiful days of the fall season before the winter winds arrive with snowflakes…Probably not here, but perhaps where you live!

Technorati Tags: fall,leaves,winds,snow,sunset,enjoy

Learning Now

Angela Maiers has an excellent post on her site about Learning Now.
It is a “new” way of starting the day in the classroom.

As students walk into the classroom, the following opening question is posted:

What have you learned since yesterday?

Students need to be excited about their learning and realize how much they have learned and how much there is out there to learn.

Learning is not an endeavor just for school. It is learning that fuels our lives. It brings the outside to the inside of the classroom and vice versa. Learning is perpetual, continuous, and requires us to be active. Learning – as we know it, and as we wish our students to know it - is infectious and contagious. It is PASSION-DRIVEN!  Passion-driven learning is not contained in boxes, covered in textbooks and will not be reduced to checks on a list. It must be experienced.

We are always talking about being Lifelong Learners,” but that phrase, that name, is not just a bunch of fancy words.  It should have meaning.
Until we can get students excited about learning and excited about their learning, we have not done our job.
There will not always be a teacher there next to them to tell them what to do next.  Students need to develop this love of learning and excitement to want to know more.

The Learning Now opening not only lights a spark of excitement and energy, it sets the tone, the expectation, and it extends the invitation to "Join the Learning Club, ' which is how we frame the rest of the day as we spend our time together figuring out how to make sense of this amazing world and the people that inhabit it. How far can we take it?

This is a wonderful way to start the day. I wish that all classrooms were started this way…

How can you develop

this energy,

this passion,

into your classroom?

Let me know.

[As always, in my author quotes, the underlines, color changes, and bold type is mine, not the author’s!]

Technorati Tags: passion,energy,learning,excitement,Angela Maiers,Learning Now,education