BBI 2007 Session 9

I concur with all of the issues illustrated in your reply but I purposely did not include your concerns/issues in my posting given that I wanted to focus sharply on the issue, namely a student’s behavior is related/regulated by the environment established by the teacher.  I realize the educational variables illustrated in your reply are persuasive and significant influences on student learning in today’s society.  But the main focus of my posting is an attempt to enter into a discussion of teacher responsibility in shaping student’s behavior through the development and implementation of a designed curriculum (the experience), analyzing the effectiveness of the curriculum based on the student reactions and performance (the behavior), and to assume responsibility based on student’s positive/negative reaction to the curriculum.

Allow me to digress before I proceed to tell a story based on my observations.  At approximately 15 years of age, I became extremely interested in student and class behavior under the direction of various teachers.  I often observe, and still do, students actively engaging and participating in the learning process in certain classes while the same group of students are completely uninvolved and disruptive in a different class under the direction/instruction of a different teacher.   Similarly, one student might be a high-achieving student and positive peer model in one class in one-class and the polar opposite under the instruction of a different teacher in a different class.  In fact, I have observed the phenomenon of a rapid and diverse change in class behavior based on the exit of one teacher and the entrance of another teacher.

In these scenarios, the educational variables mentioned in your posting are now constants, i.e.  (Socio-economic, home and school environments).  Why radically different behaviors?  Presently, these observations still motivate me to research the reasons for student and human behavior.  I suggest we should examine the student’s behavior change due to the variable, the different teacher.  Same constants, one variable, different outcome.

All too often teachers resort to what I classify as the default mode, blaming the system for poor students’ behavior, rather than examining and analyzing their role in creating the classroom environment that is directly and enormously responsible for student behavior.  Rather than resorting to playing the blame game, a self-inspection of their educational philosophy, ideas, techniques, and methods would prove more useful.

During discussions at the Brain and Behavior Institute, a correlation is made between teaching and brain surgery.  In the medical world, if brain surgeons were having frequent complications during surgery, would they continue to adhere to the same philosophy, ideas, techniques, and methods?  No, they would embark on a period of self-examination, with a thorough analysis and critique of presently held modes of operation. Anything less would be unacceptable.

Does this happen in the world of education? No, when faced with a difficult class, too many teachers retreat to the default mode and do not take the time or effort to analyze and reflect upon their educational beliefs and methods, to observe and consult other teachers, and devise and implement new teaching methods and strategies.

Please view this posting not as a condemnation or indictment of all teachers but as a call to arms for teachers to first resort to an examination of their educational philosophies and instructional methodologies before resorting to the time-honored tradition of citing the default mode to explain and rationalize the problems of their classrooms when confronted with a difficulty class. Some might view my comments as an over-generalization of the problems in our classrooms.  I sincerely assure you this is not the case.  The sole purpose of this posting is my intense concern of the potential disastrous effects of one year of inadequate or sub-par education on not only one student or a class/group of students but also on society.  The all too acceptable practice of teachers restoring to the default mode to rationalize inappropriate student classroom behavior is unacceptable in light of the fact that teachers are responsible for creating the educational environment that determines behaviors; we can and must do better!

Thanks for bearing with me, I can get a bit overbearing in my quest for excellence in education, but it is one of my passions. All comments greatly appreciated – they are a contribution to the common goal – the success of the student and to getting my story less wrong.