by Lillian Andrew, Student Teacher
After hearing, “Struggle For Smarts? How Eastern and Western Cultures Tackle Learning,” by Alix Spiegel on NPR's Morning Edition, I got to thinking about struggle at my cooperating high school. I have observed and adopted techniques from my cooperating teachers that have better equipped me to implement intellectual struggle for the benefit of my future students.
“Struggle for Smarts?” by Spiegel, compares teaching ideologies and techniques in Eastern and Western countries. The main difference noted is the attitude towards intellectual struggle. The article notes that Eastern cultures see struggle as an expected component of the learning process and Western cultures differ identifying struggle as an indicator of lower intelligence (Spiegel, 2012). Considering this, I thought of observations and experiences I have had throughout my high school student teaching that have shown me Western teachers who implement intellectual struggle.
“Hate me now. Thank me later,” is one of my cooperating teacher's favorite sayings. His approach to is to set high standards for his students and push them to achieve them. He has students start their projects over if they are improperly using tools, not meeting the projects requirements, or avoiding problems in the work. He does make accommodations when it comes to time, allowing students more time to work to achieve his lofty goals, but he never lowers them. My other cooperating teacher is the same way. She demands a lot from students in their weekly sketchbooks and homework assignments, as well as from their work in class. Many students are not expecting to get A's and are proud of B's and C+'s. These two teachers have created a program that reaches beyond the art projects and is a well rounded.
Besides holding high standards and reminding students of their potential, my cooperating teachers also practice what they call, “cold calling.” This technique is used when reviewing or quizzing students on information as a class. The teacher will call on a student, the students never raise their hands and if they do, they are not called on, requiring each student to be prepared to answer the question. The student called on is responsible for answering that question and if unable to, they are scaffolded to the answer; that is the teacher asks the student other, prompting questions until some form of recall is attained. The student called on is never let off the hook and I think that this technique holds students accountable and is more engaging than other forms of call and answer.
I believe engaged classrooms and high achieving students are goals of any teacher. Based on my experiences with my cooperating teachers I see that achieving this is the part that requires a lot of hard work, time, problem solving, planning, and it is a bit of a struggle. But I think that if we can do it, they can too.
Reference
Spiegel, Alix. (November 12, 2012)"Struggle For Smarts? How Eastern And Western Cultures Tackle Learning."
NPR. Retrieved from http://www.npr.org/blogs/health/2012/11/12/164793058/struggle-for-smarts-how-eastern-
and-western-cultures-tackle-learning.
After hearing, “Struggle For Smarts? How Eastern and Western Cultures Tackle Learning,” by Alix Spiegel on NPR's Morning Edition, I got to thinking about struggle at my cooperating high school. I have observed and adopted techniques from my cooperating teachers that have better equipped me to implement intellectual struggle for the benefit of my future students.
“Struggle for Smarts?” by Spiegel, compares teaching ideologies and techniques in Eastern and Western countries. The main difference noted is the attitude towards intellectual struggle. The article notes that Eastern cultures see struggle as an expected component of the learning process and Western cultures differ identifying struggle as an indicator of lower intelligence (Spiegel, 2012). Considering this, I thought of observations and experiences I have had throughout my high school student teaching that have shown me Western teachers who implement intellectual struggle.
“Hate me now. Thank me later,” is one of my cooperating teacher's favorite sayings. His approach to is to set high standards for his students and push them to achieve them. He has students start their projects over if they are improperly using tools, not meeting the projects requirements, or avoiding problems in the work. He does make accommodations when it comes to time, allowing students more time to work to achieve his lofty goals, but he never lowers them. My other cooperating teacher is the same way. She demands a lot from students in their weekly sketchbooks and homework assignments, as well as from their work in class. Many students are not expecting to get A's and are proud of B's and C+'s. These two teachers have created a program that reaches beyond the art projects and is a well rounded.
Besides holding high standards and reminding students of their potential, my cooperating teachers also practice what they call, “cold calling.” This technique is used when reviewing or quizzing students on information as a class. The teacher will call on a student, the students never raise their hands and if they do, they are not called on, requiring each student to be prepared to answer the question. The student called on is responsible for answering that question and if unable to, they are scaffolded to the answer; that is the teacher asks the student other, prompting questions until some form of recall is attained. The student called on is never let off the hook and I think that this technique holds students accountable and is more engaging than other forms of call and answer.
I believe engaged classrooms and high achieving students are goals of any teacher. Based on my experiences with my cooperating teachers I see that achieving this is the part that requires a lot of hard work, time, problem solving, planning, and it is a bit of a struggle. But I think that if we can do it, they can too.
Reference
Spiegel, Alix. (November 12, 2012)"Struggle For Smarts? How Eastern And Western Cultures Tackle Learning."
NPR. Retrieved from http://www.npr.org/blogs/health/2012/11/12/164793058/struggle-for-smarts-how-eastern-
and-western-cultures-tackle-learning.
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