Blog Post #10

Do You Teach or Do You Educate?
Do You Teach or Do You Educate?
In "Do You Teach or Do You Educate?" the difference between being a teacher and an educator is compared. A teacher is someone who merely spits out facts and asks students to accept them. An educator is someone who inspires, empowers and is a mentor according to the video. I'm still in the process of learning how to become an educator, but after reading our Blog Post Assignments and Teachers' Blogs, I'm starting to get the feel of how I might go about accomplishing this.
When contemplating to how educate rather than teach, my last Teacher Blog for Project #3 comes to mind. I read Scott Kemp's Accomplishing More By Doing Less. Kemp focuses on promoting a classroom in which culture can flourish, gives feedback frequently, and answering student questions if they are truly needed. Lastly, he steps aside and lets the learning begin. I think that this same approach is the one that I will be taking when educating. I will encourage my students to learn(and want to learn) and take advantage of the PLNs we learned about earlier in the semester.

Tom Johnson's Don't Let Them Take the Pencils Home!
Tom Johnson's Don't Let Them Take the Pencils Home!
"Don't Let Them Take the Pencils Home!" is written in the form of a conversation that Johnson had with Gertrude. In this conversation she has recently read an article that stated children who take home pencils have lower test scores. Rather than ponder why this is, Gertrude decides to solve this by not allowing pencils to go home anymore. Johnson suggests that teachers change to mentality of pencils are toys by creating more engaging lesson plans.

Johnson makes his point by demonstrating that the key to student success(or higher the higher test scores that appeal to Gertrude) is to find innovative ways to help students enjoy learning. When it is obvious students are not enjoying lessons by their use of hangman for entertainment, Johnson comes up with ways to make the lesson more appealing. As in "Do You Teach or Do You Educate?" Johnson practices the ways of "educating." He is more interested in why students may not be as interested in learning and how to change that. This method will prove to be more effective in the long run than purely focusing on test scores.