Response to “Is The Great American Teacher Dead?"

TESOL
Lesson 2
May 3, 2018

 Response to “Is The Great American Teacher Dead?”

Cris Carrasco

“Keep away from people who try to belittle your ambitious. Small people always try to do that, but the really great make you feel that you, too, can become great.”  (Mark Twain)

I Learned so many things from the article that I don't really know what to share with you guys!

The story told was about Demosthenes who was struggling to be good at Public Speaking, he claimed that even drunkards and illiterate people were better speakers than him, but with Satyrus's help and demonstration, he was convinced; the experience he had convinced him of the overwhelming importance of delivery and set him a speaking career that would bring him everlasting regard and put him on the intellectual map for millennia.

            I also learned from the article that Public Speaking and teaching are cousins. At the core of both is communication. I learned that education is more than just exposing people to facts. Learning is enhanced by a teaching that is passionate, positive, inspiring, inviting, meaningful, and transformative, addressing wold problems, shifts, paradigms, and attends to fragile self-concepts within its recipients.

It is not that easy to tell the status of great teaching in the US today. According to E. L Cerroni-Long (1993), Italian Anthropologist, after spending time at an American university, American Students are not very deep intellectually, and that American students are profoundly anti-intellectual in their attitudes.

            I also learned that “The most important aspect of a teacher is to be romantic.” (William W. Purkey)

Critical thinking in college students is best enhanced by dialogue concerning intriguing questions, exploring the unknowns, and new ways of looking at the world.

I strongly believe that friendly teachers, those who take the Master Teacher as their perfect example will have great Power over the hearts of their students.