Learning for the Right Reasons

When a teacher says she cannot learn for her students she means that her role is to facilitate and meditate the learning. She needs to bridge the gap between what they already know and what they have the capability of knowing. Teachers can only encourage their students to learn and think independently about the material. Although a teacher can try to drill information into her student's heads, she cannot force them to get a deeper meaning from the material.

To be honest, all my life, I have been learning for my grades. I have been studying, doing homework and reading in hopes that my hard work will be rewarded with an A. Very recently I have realized that the grade is meaningless without understanding. Most of my experiences in classrooms have been trying to memorize the correct answers in order to be able to produce them on a test and get a good grade. I believe that this is very common. In my life thus far, I am more frequently asked how well I did rather than what I have learned. Because of this constant pressure to get the best grades my learning has been centered around performing.

Interestingly, Mr. Wilson let the students make mistakes and simply points out that a mistake has been made and leaves it up to them to correct it. This facilitates learning. Students learn from their mistakes and by coming up with a solution on their own, the students are reaching a higher level of thinking. If Mr. Wilson would have stopped the students and told them what to do they would not have realized that there is a way to make a mistake and thus, they would not have learned.

I live on Long Island and the beach has been a huge part of my life growing up. I will definitely use this unique aspect of our geography to interest the students. I will bring in water from the ocean and the bay and the rivers and streams near by so we can test the water. I will ask the student what thy want to know about the different water whether it be density, salt content or anything else I will allow them to test it in a way that is meaningful to them. I can also bring in sand from different areas of long island and we can compare and contrast the differences and come up with reasons why sand might be different in different places. More importantly, I will ask my student to bring in a piece of nature that is meaningful to them and we can explore the things that interest each of them.