I would have to say that most of my intelligence, and probably a lot of people’s intelligence, comes from school. Interactions with teachers went a long way towards helping me build that intelligence. My interactions with teachers were usually good. I was quiet but I did my work, got good grades, and was never an issue. As a result, my teachers put more focus on others that were struggling but if I ever needed help with something, they were happy to lend a hand. That worked well for me. I liked being able to figure things out for myself before I go to someone else. Doing things on my own did lead to me not being as close to some of my teachers as others but I was okay with that. When I did interact with my teachers, it went well. They always tried to do what they could to help me with whatever I came to them with. This was exactly what I needed in order to learn as much as I could and perform academically.
While those methods worked for me, they do not work for every student. Everyone’s ideal environment for learning is a little different. To get students to learn and do well, teachers need to do their best to understand what that environment might be for each student. In order to do this, they need more time working as close to one-on-one with students as possible. Smaller class sizes could achieve this. The average class in my high school probably had 30 people in it; it can be hard to learn the specific preferences of 30 people. Cutting down on class size makes it easier for the teachers to learn that. Another thing to change could be the curriculum. In Pennsylvania, we have these tests called the keystones. They suck, they’re stupid, and I spent a ton of time in class just learning how to do well on those tests. Instead of designing the curriculum to get students to perform well on standardized tests like that, make the emphasis on trying to make sure students are really learning the material. I think making those changes could help schools improve the performance of their students.
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I really love how you addressed how unique every situation is pertaining to teacher interactions. I think it is important to remember how everyone has had a different experience throughout their educational journey thus far and we have all had different experiences in this way. Even though you said you were quiet in school, you were still able to touch on how educators interacted with others through careful observation. You did what you could to receive help when you needed it though; which is ultimately what counts in the end. I also totally agree with the way school environments are regarding standardized testing. It takes away from the personal interactions students could have with teachers if teachers could teach what they wanted. I feel this would enhance the teacher’s ability to communicate with students and allow the interactions to grow stronger. I like the idea of cutting down class size to increase the impact a teacher’s interactions with their students as a more direct form as well; this is a reason why I chose E-town to begin with. I loved how low the student to faculty ratio is and how direct the line of communication is between the professors and their students. Even if the interactions aren’t very strong, the fact that they are there is a very important factor in getting the most out of your education as a whole.
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I fully agree to your point of close communications between students and teachers. Being able to be in constant communication allows a student and teacher to work for the students best interest and help them get the best grades possible. I can add to the fact that interactions with teachers are highly important especially if a student is struggling. If you’re not speaking to your professors there you have less of a chance of catching back up with material and really understanding it. The teachers know what is best to learn their material and if you are communicating to them, they are unable to help you. Going to your suggestions for what teachers could do to improve communications with their students; I personally like smaller class sizes because they do allow for one-on-one with teacher and students. Although, if you bring this idea to a larger scale such as college it becomes much more difficult to keep class sizes small mainly in major universities. There isn’t face to face conversations with professors when they teach a class of over 200 students. Also students that are home schooled or on cyber school. These are different types of interactions with teachers either through their parents or through a computer screen. Someones intelligence I don’t believe can fully correspond to interactions with teachers, some students still work well throughout college and beyond even if they do not have the close interactions with teachers.
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