“The world is different these days.”
“Things just aren’t what they used to be.”
These phrases are uttered so often it’s now accepted that
being a teacher in today’s world is vastly different from yester years. . Kids
are more difficult. They are unmotivated and lack discipline. Parents aren’t
doing their jobs in teaching many necessary skills, so our job has expanded
beyond what we should have to teach. As
a relatively new teacher, I do not possess the decades long scope to judge the
validity of such assertions. However, since this is the general attitude of
many of my colleagues, I accept it and move on. After all, I teach in public
school and am contractually bound to teach whoever shows up at the door, right?
So does it really matter if kids are different?
My reality is that I am a language arts teacher, but my
teaching responsibilities do not end there. Part of my job is to shape these
young minds to think, reason, and make wise choices as they grow and encounter life’s
hurdles, pitfalls, and joys. Sometimes these lessons are actually planned while
others emerge through those blink and you’ll miss them teachable moments. Other
times, learning happens when you least expect it.
I have always been fascinated by the logistics behind
learning. As a parent, I marveled at how
my boys acquired understanding of their world sometimes just by watching; other
times they engaged in what appeared to be close examination of stimuli. Still,
other learning happened as a result of my deliberate intention to work with my
children on a skill, which ultimately translated into increased abilities as a
classroom teacher. Even though my actions were planned, the whole process was
often mysterious as sometimes they mastered certain things quickly while other
times they floundered after repeated attempts. Even though they failed, wasn’t
there something gained in the process itself? If so, was that learning?
Certainly, learning has been concretely defined by psychologists over the years, but the definition has definitely expanded as our understanding of the human mind grows. I feel in some ways, though, that this chase for understanding will be ceaseless because of the precise nature of learning. Not to sound too philosophical, but I believe strongly in a collective learning that coincides with individual learning. One prime example of this is the influence of technology. We are altering our learning patterns and behavior thanks to our reliance upon and immersion into screens. We teachers see this in practice daily, and some are making the necessary adjustments to accommodate the varied needs of our learners. For example, my students and I read "The Maze Runner" this spring and even though I had a class set of books for the students to use, many preferred to read off the screen, which was mind boggling as part of my love of reading is wrapped in the smell and feel of a book.
So if learning is the ultimate goal of my chosen career, I find myself so very often learning things myself! And for that, I'm incredibly grateful. I don't sit at a desk and complete the same mundane tasks from year to year. Far from that, I am thrown into situations daily that cause me to sit and observe, experiment, flounder, and keep trying as I chase the ever elusive "knowledge" in the genuine hope that when it is my turn to look back at decades worth of teaching, I can smile and note, "The world is different these days, and I'm so glad for it."
