<!doctype html public "-//w3c//dtd html 4.0 transitional//en">
<html>
I think this is a very definite possibility Andres, especially when you
consider the attitudinal changes that enter into the picture during adolescence.
Specifically, most children develop a sense of superiority at about age
10 or so, as soon as the I-know-everything gene activates (a little
humor here). Another point: do their "teachers" know the subject
well enough to field sometimes indepth questions from the classroom audience?
If not, it seems the child and possibly the entire group will lose confidence
in that teacher, and when faced with that scenario day after day with no
alternative offered, I can see where a child will begin to resist participation.
Especially if the child's actual academic progress hasn't been tracked
for a few years and their reading and/or math skills trail several years
behind grade placement. Double fault on the system that is pretending
to 'educate' the child.
<br>I have no difficulty at all in looking critically at my own educational
history and picking out teachers who unknowingly absolutely defeated my
exuberance towards various subjects as a direct result of them not knowing
enough about the subject at hand. They simply 'delivered' the material
and were unable to discuss at deeper levels.
<p>I remember clearly the football coaches who were assigned to teach mathematics,
world history, and driver's ed. I also remember clearly the snickers
generated within the student ranks at the thought that a 'coach' could
teach academic material, whether they could or not was immaterial.
<p>Certainly there is more to this than stated here, from my perspective
I can see multitudes of reasons why a child might lose interest or focus
on any particular subject long enough to miss the salient points and therefore
leave the class at the end of term without useable understanding.
<br>
<br>
<p>Art
<p>AndresMuro@aol.com wrote:
<blockquote TYPE=CITE><font face="Century Gothic"><font size=-1>Some thoughts
that came to mind while reading your posts:</font></font>
<p><font face="Century Gothic"><font size=-1>I was reading an article yesterday
in which the author argued that there is a disconnect between theory and
practice in teaching. she argued that teachers could practice teaching,
but they did not know the ideology behind what they were teaching. According
to her, this prevented teachers and students from getting into meaningful
discussions as to why they are learning something. they can only discuss
the answer to a problem, but not the reason why the problem was chosen.
Is it possible that this is what the students resist?</font></font>
<p><font face="Century Gothic"><font size=-1>It seems to me, that possibly
the students perceive that the ideological reasons the students learn what
they learn are not for their benefit, but for the benefit of someone else.
Recently I was invited to the office of minority health conference to talk
about health and adult education. I have been thinking about this for a
while. to me, schools are supposed to be teaching important things and
health is one of the most important things there is, period. Why are schools
not teaching health in a systematic way, for example. To me, this
is the most clear evidence that schools don't teach what is most important
to the students.</font></font>
<p><font face="Century Gothic"><font size=-1>Andres</font></font>
<br>
<br> </blockquote>
</html>