Blog Assignment 10

Do You Teach or Do You Educate?
This video, "Do You Teach or Do You Educate?" gives an interesting perspective on the difference between teaching and educating. I definitely want to be an educator as opposed to a teacher. I am a Secondary Education major and my area of study in Social Science/History. So many people think that History is boring because it is a series of dates, events, and people. To some degree this is true because this is the way that many teachers are teaching it. The ONLY reason that the facts (dates, people, etc) are important is to give a point of reference for what I think is the more important focus of history. I want my students to think about the outcomes of these things and how things might have been different if ONE thing was changed. For instance, how would WWI have been different if the assassination of Archduke Ferdinand had never happened? Or, how would the Civil War have played out if the North had grown agriculturally and the South had grown as the industrial capital of the United States? To answer these questions, students need to understand the true events and THINK about the social, political, and economic implications at an age appropriate level of course.
This is just one example of how I plan to educate as opposed to teaching. I also want my students to be excited about the information. I had a great example of how to do this. My mom had a Master's in History and instead of talking to 4th and 5th graders about the history of Mobile, she did walking tours of downtown Mobile. She would take them to the source and "show and tell". She LOVED history and knew facts that you couldn't find in a history book. She would tell little stories about people and places that gave you a deeper understanding about who or what was really happening. This was before the internet and to get information like that she really had to dig and research and read. She went above and beyond to get kids excited and involved in the stories she was telling. I want to become as immersed as she did.
As great as this sounds, I don't see the world through rose-colored glasses. I know that to teach this way, I still have a curriculum and standards to follow. This has always been my fear of teaching and I have mentioned it in previous blogs. In EDM310, I am becoming more comfortable with the balance that I will need to have. Being introduced to people like Rafe Esquith, Richard Miller, Scott McLeod, and Sir Ken Robinson has given me a lot of direction and I am determined to have the best of both worlds!

Tom Johnson's Don't Let Them Take The Pencil's Home
"Don't Let Them Take the Pencil's Home" illustrates how all too often, teachers get so wrapped up in the problem that they forget about the solutions that can fix the problem. Mr. Johnson does this in a brilliant little anecdote where two teachers are talking about the use of pencils. One is focused on the fact that the pencils could be used for things non-educational, like hang-man. The other is focused on how to solve the problem. My favorite part was when one asked, "How do you hold them accountable at home?" and the other responded, "I don't...". She went on to explain that they are probably learning things that we aren't aware of while they are playing hang-man. The reason I found this part so interesting is because I think there is a correlation with what we have talked abut in EDM310 before. Many people are against the idea of technology in the classroom because they think that students will use the technology for non-educational purposes. On the outside, some activities might appear to serve no true purpose. For instance, what is the purpose of Twitter and Facebook? Socialization, communication, collaboration, sharing thoughts and ideas, working through problems, researching, reading about pop culture and who's who.... all with their peers? That's crazy! What could they possibly learn from their peers? The answer is A LOT! All of the things mentioned above HAVE to be learned if we want to produce successful adults. The difference is, they are doing it differently than the generations before them. There is nothing wrong with that. We (the adults) have to change our way of thinking to fit into their world, not the other way around.