I have been at Schreiner for three years now and I walk around campus all the time, but today was different. Today I have noticed all the trees on our campus. I had never really paid attention to them before, but I noticed them today because of all the shade they were offering me from the retna burning sunshine. I began to notice all the different types of trees from oaks to pecan to crap-apple trees. I then began to wonder to my self. I said self, my self said Uh? (Mr. Brown fans get it) I started to wonder how often we do we not pay attention to the beauty around us until it has something to offer to us. For instance how often to we ignore those gifted and bright students until they score well on the TAKS test? Do we teach to the lowest common denominator? Why? Would it be better to expect those “slower learning” students to try harder and keep up? I know my thoughts are bias as I have never had to deal with the bureaucracy of the public school education system. At the higher education level it is a sink or swim mentality which now that I am reflecting in action has its down falls as well. What are your thoughts on this?
Jason, I hope we do not teach to the lowest common denominator. That grieves me for the students who are a captive audience. I was working with my undergrad class this morning on the stragegies used by effective teachers. We were looking at teachng clips and identifying those strategies. It was so easy, even for untrained future teachers, to see the difference where the students were engaged and the classrooms where they were not. You have given us something to think about and a standard to live up too. Keep us on task.
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