Dave Wirth
I will not apologize.
No student ever needs to have his or her own sovereignty obliterated in order to learn. None. End of discussion. No teacher should think it's his or her own job to break the student down and then build them up from there.
I remember the teachers who listened to me, who actually cared to know how I was doing, who offered a helping hand and good guidance. These are the teachers I'll never forget. They are the supermans, the superwomans of education. They put up with a whole mess-o-crap in order to teach. They have to do thousands of things outside of the actual educational process. They need to be absolutely on top of it all in order to help out scores of people and handle multiple tasks at one time. It's a hard, heavy, task. I know. I'm a teacher, too.
Some teachers handle that weight by being incredibly brutal to their students. Some teachers stop caring and they collect a check. What about the teachers we remember? These teachers followed a process of encouraging their students think the way that's best for them. In my opinion, a dedicated minority of teachers respect and encourage the sovereignty of their students. When you teach anyone else any subject or skill, you are helping another person who has opened up and admitted that they are weak in an area that you are strong in. How are you going to do it? Are you going to be brutal and make it hard on them to learn, or will you really challenge them by respecting their autonomy as well as your own?
Knowing how to teach something is fun, but there's more to it than simply filling in the blanks.
