Comments on Classmates' Blog Post Wk 3 - "The Art of Possibility":

Tiffany Tyndall - "Week3reading- LIGHTEN UP, It's not that serious!!!"

"It's true, a leader can be anywhere. I have always said as a teacher there are things that we learn from our students as well as our peers. Everyone has their strengths and everyone has their weaknesses, we as adults can learn from each other. I loved the story in our textbook about the conductor who was having problems getting the orchestra to play the song correctly and how someone visiting was able to make one or two suggestions and that fixed all their orchestral problems. Truth is, the visitor could have used a simple approach to LEAD the orchestra. Rule Number 6 is good advice, "Don't take yourself so seriously". In other words, lighten up. This is a prime example of the simple approach that the visiting conductor did. I can imagine now the normal conductor got up and corrected the students by saying something that was totally above their heads and the visiting conductor just made it plain.

Being an educator, I have noticed that a lot of stress gets put on educators to get and keep test scores up. As a result some teachers become so eager to get those test scores up that they will do anything even if that means boring their students. The students become stressed out and the teacher is even more stressed out, that's when Rule Number 6 really comes into play. By making class fun for the students it almost like you trick them into learning. They have so much fun that they forget that they are in a learning environment and ultimately you get the test scores you need."

Picture from http://www.flickr.com/photos/aeromartin/1470518841/

MY COMMENT:

Tiffany,

I like that you made the point that we can learn from our students as well. I think a lot of times they don’t realize that we are learning from them and they need to hear it. Also, that we are have our strengths and weakness. I always find myself explaining that to a student or friend when they say they are stupid and can’t do something. It can be tough to remember sometimes but we are not perfect and as the book explains we have to learn to accept things about ourselves especially to build on them. Great points!