Skip to main content

Posts

Showing posts from March, 2011

Are You A Guide or A Gate Keeper?

A middle school math teacher's grading policy says that students can make corrections to tests and quizzes only if they fail and then, only to bring up their grade to a 70.  My graduate studies professor, on the other hand, taught for mastery, giving everyone the opportunity to go back and learn what was missed on any test or assignment. I think there are two ways of looking at our job as teachers:  We can act as gate keepers, letting through those who either know the material already or learn it quickly and in the way we are most comfortable teaching, and keeping out those who for one reason or another don't "get" it right away.  Or we can be guides, meeting each student where he or she may be, getting to know his or her strengths and believing that there is a time and a way for everyone to reach the same learning destination. We are gate keepers when we focus on what is missing and miss what is there.  We may feel uncomfortable accommodating different learnin