Most students do not find history an interesting subject before graduating from high school (unless they have an exceptional teacher, of course). Most students see no point to studying history, or what relevance most of it has to their lives now.
Sadly, most history classes at the high school level involve memorizing lists of military or political events, and names of leaders. But all this is meaningless to most students.
When I was a child in elementary school, I recall my father telling me, “History is like a big, long story. That makes it easy to learn and easy to remember.”
Yet the history lessons I had in school, and even in University classes, were nothing like this. Since 1960 or before, most history is now presented in Social Studies “Units,” or in disjointed tidbits mixed into lessons on geography or the arts. What is missing, however, is any sense of cause and effect, or how any of these periods tie together or transitioned from one change to another. Thus, history has become, for most, memorizing random facts with no meaning, in order to pass a test.
HOW OUR SOCIETAL VIEWS OF TIME CAUSED THIS SITUATION:
We must look briefly at the three methods of viewing time.
CHAOTIC TIME is how time is viewed by a small child. Events follow each other randomly, and it is hopeless to try to impute any meaning to these events.
CYCLICAL TIME arose with the very first societies. Natural cycles of planetary events began to be linked with human activities such as planting, harvesting, hunting, and feasting. Lengths of days, and times of year, were measured by watching the stars or other natural phenomena. Cyclical belief systems and practices arose in early societies all around the world. Examples of some cyclical systems include astrology, the Cult of Osiris, Feng Shui, or the Aztec Calendar. Through repetition, cyclical time was able to conquer chaotic time.
Most early societies believed in a cyclical view of time, in which patience, ritual, and the healing power of time-from-nature were valued. The ability to divine nature’s energy and use it was highly valued (Strauss, 11). One advantage of belief in cyclical time is that when societies have horrible wars, or fall apart, these times are seen as temporary, as being a “winter season” from which the spring and a renewal will eventually come.
Things changed with the arrival of monotheism, especially Christianity. From its earliest days, Christianity tried to stamp out the cyclical view of time. They denounced it as “calendrical paganism” and did their best to stamp out non-linear thought-systems such as astrology (Strauss, 10). Yet, they were never able to stamp it out completely. When modernity, and especially the Enlightenment arrived, the Western World switched to a LINEAR VIEW OF TIME.
The greatest achievement of LINEAR TIME has been to give all mankind the sense that we are improving ourselves, that we are MAKING PROGRESS TOWARD A BETTER END. We now “prize the ability to defy nature’s energy and overcome it,” (Strauss, 11).
By the sixteenth century, printed copies of the Christian Bible were now circulating, and there was a new urgency in European society, as people now began speculating about Christ’s second (and final) coming. Early English settlements transported this linearism of religious purpose in building utopias to America, where it greatly influenced future American society. Waves of immigrants saw themselves as the builders of new utopias–Calvinists, Puritans, and others transported ideas of “building a New Jerusalem, as defenders of ‘God’s Chosen Country,’ and pioneers in the service of a Manifest Destiny.” (Strauss, 10)
Linear societies define EXPLICIT GOALS (whether moral or material), and set out to deliberately attain them. When these goals are reached, people feel triumphant. This leads us to view life as SELF-DIRECTED, and our personal lives as SELF-MADE. These ideas instilled in Western societies the idea of LINEAR PROGRESS toward an EVER-BETTER MATERIAL and societal future. These were the ages of belief in technological progress solving all problems, of Manifest Destiny in America.
In America, the HAPPY ENDING is truly our NATIONAL BELIEF (Strauss, 11).
THE BIG CATASTROPHIC CHANGE:
This view held until World War I. The entire Western World was affected. Suddenly, we were NO LONGER SURE of the idea of continual progress. Now, we had the fear that our linear path may, in fact, be DOWNWARD.
Despair and dystopian ideas took hold. (The optimism following World War II created a reprive from these ideas for a time; however, they returned in the 1960s.) Progress doesn’t look as positive as it did in the past; the fear of nuclear winter (or planetary destruction), robotic technology replacing human jobs, and the new fear that HISTORY IS RANDOM AND DIRECTIONLESS has replaced Manifest Destiny and Belief in Continual Positive Progress. The FEELING of CHAOTIC TIME has returned, as if events follow each other randomly, without purpose or reason.
THE CHANGE IN HISTORY TEACHING:
Dramatic changes in history teaching methods during the twentieth century were caused by changes in our societal view of time.
When the narrative method was used to teach history, the glue which held it together was that it was a teleological view. This view means that history had a beginning and was headed toward a particular end. In more religious times (and among those who currently believe “End Times” are coming) this would mean the time of the last Judgement, or the times of Revelation, or the End of the World, or the Second Coming of Christ. In America’s past, the idea of Manifest Destiny came out of this teleological view.
Among the less religious, a secular teleological view was substituted, that of continual progress toward the self-betterment of mankind (Strauss, 11).
The teleological, linear, narrative view essentially taught (in religious times) that the victors of history were part of the God-approved progression of history toward an eventual religious triumph and religious conclusion: including the rise and fall of societies; the conquest of societies and peoples; the people in positions of authority having the approval of God to be there, etc. Events such as the genocide and/or enslavement of Native Americans were viewed in the past as replacement of inferior societies and worldviews with morally-correct and improved peoples and world-views. Today’s ways of looking at events was not even considered, since the teleological view implied God’s approval.
Generally speaking, science eschews teleology. Teleologically-based “grand narratives” are now frowned upon in post-modern society. However, in America, the belief in scientific progress leading mankind toward a Utopian end has persisted until recently.
For example, the television series Star Trek was so popular precisely because it supported the idea of hope and progress being able to solve all future social problems of hunger, poverty, wise government through democratic institutions. Furthermore, they go throughout the universe spreading hope, light, and progress by means of the morally upstanding Federation (seeming to represent the ideas of the United States after WWII) against the Klingon Empire of Darkness (seeming to represent the Western ideas of communist empires of evil and darkness).
WHAT WE ARE LEFT WITH TODAY:
History classes in schools and in text books (where they are even still used) tend to be very light on examining the time periods between major catastrophic or important events. This is partly due to time constraints, but it is also due to the fact that so many people and societal groups DISAGREE on the causes.
Text books took to leaving out anything controversial decades ago so that they can sell one or two versions of their books across most state lines. Books and history courses that offend no one are now the order of the day. When causes are taught, they are taught in isolation from other events.
Here is one example. Hardly anyone knows why World War I was fought. Students are taught, “The cause was the shooting of the archduke. Then everyone began fighting.” In fact, the real causes are found in the larger, global events of the previous one-to-two centuries leading up to the war, in the expansion of the British Empire, particularly in India, and the Great Game played between Russia and Britain, and alliances which took place in Europe, concerned with balance-of-power politics. Students learn little to nothing about any of these things, and learn nothing of how the basic geography of certain countries drives their foreign policy. Once these things are studied, World War I doesn’t seem so mysterious. (See references below if interested in pursuing these topics further.)
For years, as a teacher, I wondered both WHEN and WHY the teaching of history changed, and I am finally glad to at least understand what happened. I wish I had solutions toward improving it in modern society. But when every group seems to be pushing their own agenda, and with no one really in charge, I have no idea how to do that. Any thoughts would be welcome in discussion below.
The problem of students who are unable to adequately read their grade-level textbooks is not new; the problem starts in early elementary school and only gets worse as students move up in grade levels. Unfortunately, the rise of the internet in the past twenty years has only exacerbated the problem.
Let’s look briefly at the pre-internet reading situation in middle-class schools and above (poor schools have additional problems which will not be treated in this particular article). Looking back, the most important function of the school library was to be filled with books to be used for school research projects which were at the correct reading levels for students.
Not only were grade-level books provided, but there were plenty of below-grade-level books on every topic available to readers who were still below grade-level. For example, a middle-school student with a lower reading level could still find good primary-level books on any research topic assigned. There used to be hundreds of books available through publishers, on every conceivable topic, for school libraries and public libraries to choose from. Bookstores made them available to the general public.
Today, funding priorities are focused less on providing new books for the school library–partly because of the explosion of new topics and knowledge in our modern world, and also because of the explosion of information on the internet. Now funding must be divided between books, and new library computers.
The market for children’s non-fiction has plummeted since 2005. Sales to both libraries and bookstores have dropped substantially. Therefore, fewer nonfiction books for children are being written and published. Publishers and booksellers decided to drop most nonfiction, and focus primarily on children’s fiction–for which there does continue to be a market.
The lack of nonfiction is particularly damaging for boys. They tend to prefer autobiographies, nonfiction, newspapers, and realistic topics. Ever since 2005, as the internet has become more powerful, children’s nonfiction has declined. This decline is preventing many boys from developing as readers. National standards in Britain and America drive the decline even further, “…as the strictures of the national curriculum have driven many publishers to stop producing anything very original, and how many books on Vikings and rainforests do we really need?”
Starting in middle school–most commonly Grade 6 and above–teachers now direct students to the internet for research, instead of to school libraries. One reason is that science classes are now often researching topics which are not even available in books in the school libraries–things such as genetics, and various types of cells–and this is happening in Grades 6, 7, and 8.
Students are now being asked to research obscure people for reasons of diversity in the classroom, rather than famous people. This means that the information can only be found on the internet. Students are now expected to use the internet for all research. This is now true even in elementary school. Students may be assigned reports on animals, for example. Perhaps there are perfectly good books in the school library at the right reading level; however, it has now become “too much trouble” to even check , when one can “just look it up online.”
Using online sources creates a much worse problem–aside from the problem of whether a source is reliable, biased, or incomplete–that is, the problem of reading level!
Below is reading sample from a Grade 5 science text which more than half of students (even in good schools) might find too difficult to read without the teacher’s help. Why? Because students are now used to reading only fiction in reading class. They are not used to the vocabulary in non-fiction; nor are they used to reading expository sentences..
Not only have student reading levels declined in real terms, but the sources students are now attempting to use are usually written at far too high of a level for their age. Students in middle school and high school usually go first to Wikipedia (and are often specifically told to do so by their teachers, particularly in international schools that have much less access to English-language printed material). Unlike school library books or school text books of old, vocabulary is not controlled for difficulty. Sometimes the articles are poorly written, and written by scholars who are just trying to impress other scholars with their difficult vocabulary.
Below is a section of what one of my 7th-graders attempted to read for a report on glial cells last year, using Wikipedia. Most students now need adult help to translate and explain what they are trying to read. To a poor reader, this may as well be in Chinese:
Those students who can afford it hire private tutors. My students show up and say, “I have a project or report due next week on glial cells (or guard cells, or an obscure historical figure). Can you help me?” Students arrive knowing nothing about the topic, and are expected to research on line, and write a report listing their sources. So, together we look on line and usually find very scholarly articles, which I, as an excellent reader in my 60s with a graduate degree and decades of experience teaching, sometimes have trouble understanding! So we pull out little snippets of information from various articles, which I explain in plain English and then mark our source. Even many Wikipedia articles are written by scholars, seemingly just in order to impress other scholars!
I learned a great trick years ago when I was in a professional writers’ group. If you need good, concise information on an area or a subject, one of the best ways to find it is to go directly to children’s books, where you can find the information thoroughly distilled and written in clear, easy English. I use this same strategy now and show students how they can search on the internet using the search terms “my topic + explained for children.” It doesn’t always work, but it often does. Sometimes we arrive at a website where something has been clearly explained at a reading level appropriate for middle-school students.
The thing which most excited me about the internet when it first began, especially as an overseas teacher with little access to English-language reading materials, was its potential as a world library at our fingertips. Sadly, much of this potential is being lost for two reasons. First, children are not developing adequate non-fiction reading abilities to function in society. Second, most of what is available on the internet is written at far too high of a level for students to be able to benefit from it.
In most American schools, for the past several decades, the textbook has been seen by teachers as only one resource of many for classroom use. In fact, years ago, over-reliance on the textbook was almost seen as the mark of a lazy teacher, within the teaching profession. Unfortunately, the current result of this attitude has now led to teacher over-reliance on the internet, with students who are unable to understand either their textbooks OR the internet! I personally have come around 180° to the view that students would be better served if they learned and discussed in class everything which is in the textbook. Now, however, there is a new problem! Many schools are now moving entirely away from textbooks as a way to save money, and teachers are mostly downloading random worksheets from the internet. Unfortunately, it is students who are again losing out on their education.
Part II of this series will discuss what parents, schools, and teachers can do to address these problems.
The flipped classroom is just not appropriate for all subjects, all of the time. This educational fad has gone way too far, and is being used for the wrong reasons. Most importantly, it runs into problems when teachers attempt to use it as a time-saving device in order to cover more material, because only a small percentage of students’ reading levels are actually up to grade level.
While the flipped classroom sounds like a new idea, it is actually an old idea. Several decades ago, it was called preparation–a good name–in Britain, although I am not aware of any specific name for it in America. It often consisted of reading a selection in a text book before arriving in class, for example, so that one could better benefit from a lecture.
The flipped model works extremely well for math classes. As an elementary teacher, I would look each day at the following day’s homework section. I would give about fifteen minutes of instruction and guided practice specifically on what my third graders needed to complete that day’s homework. We did not waste time in class doing homework.
I expected all children arrive in class with their homework complete, in order to be ready for the most important part of the lesson, learning from mistakes. Right or wrong, they all got nice, big A‘s on the homework for completing it in pencil (including showing all work and carry numbers or cross-outs). If they did not show their work, or if the work was either undone, or incomplete, they got a large, red F. Within a short time EVERY child arrived daily with homework done. We then put pencils away, and got out ink pens which we called “marking pens.” Each child corrected their own paper. There was no incentive to erase wrong answers, because the child already had an A, just for completing the homework. We spent the following 30 minutes going over the problems missed by the largest numbers of students, working them on the board. Students learned so much when they could see where they went wrong. In most cases, we found errors such as subtracting the ones place, while adding the ten’s place, in the same problem–or, in forgetting to add in carry numbers, things like that. In math class, the flipped classroom works fantastically.
Using the flipped classroom as a time-saving device runs into trouble in subjects which require a lot of reading for two reasons. One reason is that in many good schools, students are feeling overwhelmed with the amount of homework, leading them to take ineffective shortcuts. Using Spark Notes, and similar services, just do not engage student interest, and students miss the benefit of the literature.
The most important reason the flipped classroom runs into trouble is that students’ reading levels are just not up to grade-level standard in terms of being able to read either text books, or literature, on their own.
This problem is not new. It was widespread in the 1970s and 1980s. Secondary teachers in Colorado at that time were required to take Reading in the Content Area. It was a course designed to help secondary teachers help students who were unable to read their textbooks adequately. Because of the decline in book reading and adequate reading instruction, together with the rise in technology, in 2013, more than two-thirds of students in the United States were now below reading level for their grade.
Unfortunately, today, most students, even some of the best students are not even attempting to read literature (or their history, or science, text books). Most are attempting to find the film online. Poor readers who attempt to read Spark Notes have trouble understanding even that, and certainly no one finds Spark Notes inspiring.
Many secondary English teachers (including elementary reading teachers, and secondary science and history teachers) are now assigning reading for homework, in order to cover more material and just have discussion in class. The problem with this is that two-thirds of students are either not able to read effectively, and do not even attempt to read because of feeling overwhelmed.
So what do teachers need to do in order to combat these problems effectively?
First, they need to read the book (or text book section) themselves, in the mindset of a student, thinking about vocabulary which many students may not know, and noting it down. They need to think about the major ideas and how those ideas relate to life today.
Next, they need to introduce the book or reading selection with a short, inspirational talk, that will make students feel like they can’t wait to read more! They need to talk about and explain vocabulary (whether it is old-fashioned language or science terms) before students start to read. History teachers need to think about the problems they are teaching about in a historical context and how those problems relate to life in the world somewhere today. Introduce the similar problems and questions of today and how they are being dealt with in the modern world, then look at the same questions in how they are being dealt with in the novel, or in history, or in the science text book. Discuss what could happen in the future with the same issues.
Rather than starting a unit with reading the text book or novel, start the unit with a discussion of the students’ life questions about the issues which will arise in the reading selection Here are three examples:
History: While studying various political decisions of Roman Emperors, first discuss similar problems in the modern world. Open with a question, “What do you think about when you hear of an apartment building collapse that kills people because of shoddy building practices? What should be done?” Or, “What’s it like to be stuck in rush-hour traffic? What would it be like if the highway were also clogged with pedestrians, donkey carts, and horse-drawn carriages all at the same time, and it happened four times a day instead of two times a day?” Then, “Now let’s see how they dealt with these same problems in ancient Rome.”
Rhett loves Scarlet, while Scarlet loves Ashley and uses Rhett, in Gone with the Wind
Literature: “How many of you have ever had the experience of being in love with someone, only to have that person be in love with a different, third person?” Then, “The problem of love triangles is universal throughout human history, and that’s what this novel is about.”
Science (Astronomy): “Does alien life exist on other planets, or in other galaxies? What do various current scientists think about this, and why? Which planets and stars are most likely for this? What kinds of planetary conditions are thought to be necessary? Could we actually travel to other stars or planets, and how long might it take?” Then, “Now let’s turn to the text book and begin reading together about the planets.”
Lastly, MUCH more time needs to be devoted to in-class reading (even in high school). If teachers are concerned about embarrassing some students reading aloud, or if there are poor oral readers, students benefit greatly (even in high school) from the teacher reading aloud well (and adding in inflections and pauses), while they follow along. It also gives everyone a chance to stop and discuss various points, such as how they feel about actions characters take, or what situations they find themselves in.
Teachers need to inspire and motivatestudents, and help students to see connections that they would not see on their own. If the teacher is excited about the material, he cannot help but communicate that love and excitement to the students.
Cursive – the new undecipherable secret code script!
Cursive was taught in my school until four years ago. When I left, the school discontinued it as a regular subject. Now those students are in upper elementary and early middle school, and can neither read nor write in cursive writing.
Among my tutoring students, several of them have expressed to me their sadness that their older brothers and sisters can read and write in cursive, and they cannot. Still being in the first few classes not to learn cursive, they feel babyish and incompetent. Perhaps in subsequent years, this embarrassment will disappear when none of the new students have older brothers and sisters who know cursive, when they don’t. In another six or seven years, no one will know it, and it will seem normal to upcoming students. It’s only those in these transition years who will feel the loss. But they will feel it for the rest of their lives.
How many adults remember the childhood feeling of waiting to learn “grown-up” writing, or scribbling to other young friends (at the age of five or six) on a paper and bragging, “I know how to write in cursive?” Of course, at that age, no one knew, so your friends believed you, because they couldn’t read it, either!
When I tutor these students, I have to slow down and print (much more time-consuming). Of course these students also will never be able to read historical documents or even old family letters. Furthermore, most European and Latin American countries don’t teach printing at all–they teach only cursive script starting at the age of five. I feel this bodes poorly for a future globalized world.
I’d be happy to teach cursive to these students (being an expert cursive teacher), but that is not what I’m being paid to tutor in–we generally spend the time on math, science, reading, and writing. Furthermore, teaching cursive at an older age can be done, but it is not generally enjoyable as it is for children. It makes children feel grown-up, and they enjoy learning it.
When I started teaching elementary school (as a second career in 1995), I was very surprised to find all the new textbooks now referring to the centigrade scale as the Celsius scale. Of course they are the same thing, but I wondered why the textbooks were now using this term when I had never heard it growing up. Now, I know why.
The short answer is that people continue to call a thing by the same name they, themselves, learned while growing up. Most adults, and just about everyone in academia through the 1980s, grew up hearing “centigrade” and continued to use that term with their own students throughout high school and university.
The new name, “Celsius,” disturbed me ever since I began hearing it in the mid-1990s; but now that I know there was an actual reason for the name change, it no longer bothers me. A unit of measurement, called a “grade,” was actually in use. Therefore, in 1948, the Conference General de Pois et Measures (in France) decided to change the name of the scale to “Celsius.”
The International System of Units
A second reason for the change in name was that the Conference General de Pois et Measures decided that “All common temperature scales would have their units named after someone closely associated with them; namely, Kelvin, Celsius, Fahrenheit, Réaumur and Rankine.”
The change in elementary-school textbooks began to take place around 1968, and during the 1970s, as districts began to replace their former textbooks. In the meantime, parents, scientists, and college professors continued to use the name they had grown up with. Only students born in the 1970s and later would have grown up calling the scale “Celsius.” (I continue to catch myself saying “centigrade” to my own students.)
In England, the BBC Weather did not begin using the term Celsius until 1985, and the word centigrade continues to to be commonly used in England, according to some sources.
Swedish Astronomer Anders Celsius (1701-1744)
The centigrade scale was known as such from 1743-1954. In 1948, the scale was renamed the Celsius scale, after the Swedish astronomer Anders Celsius (1701-1744) who developed a SIMILAR scale (but not actually the same scale). Interestingly, Celsius’ original scale was the reverse of today’s scale; “0” indicated the boiling point of water, while “100” indicated the freezing point of water.
Swedish Zoologist and Botanist Carolus Linnaeus(1708-1777)
The Swedish zoologist and botanist, Carolus Linnaeus (1707-1778), remembered for giving us the basis of taxonomy (classification of living things into genus and species), reversed Celsius’ original scale so that “0” indicated the freezing point of water, while “100” indicated the boiling point. As the older generations retire and pass away, the new name change will become universal. It seems to take about three generations for a name change to really become universally accepted in society.
Several years ago, while teaching third grade, the school asked me to have students write stories. One of my third-grade boys (age 8) wrote a story unlike any I have ever seen in all of my years of teaching. Instead of writing about the usual kinds of stories which children do, he wrote about his experience as an adult man during war.
His story was about trying to save his family while he was being called off to war. He was rushing to hide them in the basement and get them necessities, while trucks of soldiers were coming by to pick him up and take him with them off to war. It was in Europe, and there were trucks. It’s been several years, and I no longer recall all the details, but the essence of the story has stayed with me ever since. Out of all the stories my students wrote over the years, it is the only one I can clearly remember today.
As someone who believes in reincarnation, I’ve always wondered if, in fact, this child’s story was a past-life memory. It was shocking to read. It sounded like one of the World Wars. His concerns sounded just as if an adult man of 35 was speaking about his feelings. There are a number cases now researched and published of young children who remember past lives, and even past lives in wars.
I mentioned the story to his mother, and she responded, “I know. He’s just like an old man, in a little boy’s body.”
The Arab World does not hate America because of their materialistic culture, their television programs, or their freedoms. It’s not about that. The real reasons behind the anti-American protests come down to an imbalance of power between the United States and the Arab World.
This week, one of my students commented on the recent violence occurring in reaction to the anti-Islamic video and the French caricatures. She expressed a viewpoint which has merit, but which I have not seen reported elsewhere. Quoting my student:
“The Muslims feel in competition with the West. They feel that they have to be better, on top, the winners. Every time the West does something, even on television, Arabs feel they have to compete. For example, when America created the show America’s Got Talent, the Arab World created Arabs Who Have Talent. When the West created The Voice (with Christina Aguilera, Cee Lo Green, Adam Levine and Blake Shelton) the Arab World created The Voice in the Arab World. To copy American Idol, they created Arab Idol. They copy every single thing! They always feel in competition with America, because they feel America hates them, and does not like Arabs. They always feel they have to be the best, but particularly better than America, most of all.”
Egyptian Winner of Arab Idol
My student also explained that the reason Muslim populations always take the side against the United States in international disputes is that they feel the REASON America doesn’t help Palestine is because they are Muslim, and that they help Israel because they are Jewish. (Of course, not every person believes this, but generally speaking, it is quite commonly believed, even among the well-educated.) “Here,” my student said, “they always take the side against America because they believe America doesn’t help Palestine because they are Muslim; they help Israel because they are Jewish.”
Today I watched to see what the reaction in third-world countries would be to the second print-run of the French caricatures. Surprisingly, I found only very minor protests against France, and continued protests against the U.S., such as mobs burning the U.S. flag and pictures of President Obama in Pakistan.
Why were the protests against France so feeble, while weeks after the YouTube video, the protests against America continue so strongly?
A BBC interview with Pakistanis, on the streets of Lahore following the protest, also supports this same point-of-view my student had. The BBC asked, “Where is all the anger coming from? Is it all over a low-budget movie, or is it something else?” Half of the respondents said it was because of hurt feelings over religious insults, while the other half said something different:
“They’re not just angry because of the movie. They have their personal political issues, their personal problems. They are angry about the wars (U.S. power in the region).”
“Whenever the powerful countries try to take over the resources of the weaker countries (how America is perceived in the entire Middle East), obviously the people living in those countries will try to protect their rights, and try to protect their resources. Every country should have equal rights with every other country (angry about lack of power).”
“They are angry over poverty and unemployment. There are many rich people and very poor people, and the difference is very great. They are angry because they don’t have enough food, and mostly because they don’t have enough power. So they are not just angry because of a simple movie.
Basically it comes down to a question of power. Those who are choosing to protest actually have underlying anger issues at the United States that go far beyond the YouTube film. What they are angry about is the imbalance of power–that the United States seems so overwhelmingly more powerful than the Muslim countries, and the Arab World. There were comparatively few protests against France because France does not have the same overwhelming power and influence when compared to Muslim countries.
At the end of my discussion with my student, I asked, “So, what you are saying is that the only way to get the Arab World to stop protesting against America is to stop helping Israel, and to become weak (at least weak enough to be no threat to the Arab World)?”
“Thinking back to literature tutoring days, there’s a fine line between helping students, and doing the work for them. Students and parents are happiest only if the tutor crosses it. How do you handle such situations?” a fellow tutor asked me.
This is the tutor’s most crucial dilemma, in a nutshell.
Most successful long-term tutors have also been teachers. As teachers, we want students to benefit from doing their own work. However, as tutors, we have to remember who we are working for, if we wish to stay employed.
Most students who choose to use a tutor are not reading the required books in school anyway. Few students are. These days, tutors or not, I’m finding that upwards of 90 percent of students are just watching the movie, and a few students are going to Spark Notes and reading those notes, or taking those quizzes. (Few actually read the Spark Notes well, and even fewer bother to take their quizzes.)
As a tutor, what I’m really being paid for is to make sure my students get good grades. Parents are willing to shell out money for this, but not so much for someone who tells students that they must read on their own and who does not coach non-reading students for their tests. So, what is a tutor to do?
Formerly as a teacher, I prided myself on getting all of my students to LOVE reading for pleasure, and to become truly interested in whatever subject we were studying. Presently as a tutor, I pride myself on getting my non-reading students to read SOME, and to APPRECIATE what we are reading or studying.
I use all sorts of techniques to achieve these aims. I sometimes rewrite books that use difficult language, to tell the story in simpler language. I read these simpler rewrites with my students, and once they understand, they are sometimes motivated to read the original. Sometimes they are unable to read the original, but at least they read SOMETHING, and learned about the story, and are able to pass a test asking them about the story. We discuss the story and how we feel about it as we read it (even if it is in its easier version), and the students gain an appreciation for the piece of literature.
Is this acceptable?
As a tutor, I cannot take the same attitude I would take as a teacher. As a tutor, I am coming from the perspective that students are not reading, and are not going to read. If I can get them to read ANYTHING (even if I have to “spoon-feed” it to them), they are reading more than they would if they were not coming to me. If I can get them to APPRECIATE the story, they are appreciating it far more that if they were not coming to me. If they are PASSING THE TEST, they are learning far more than if they were not coming to me.
Should we spoon-feed pupils?
So yes, I DO cross that “line” as a tutor, but I try to do it stealthily, where I sneakily make the student work and understand more than he planned to do before he came to me!
This same dilemma exists in helping with writing assignments, with math homework, and with everything else that a tutor does As a tutor, I try to help lighten the students’ burden, while at the same time actually teaching the student on a one-to-one basis, in a way which would be impossible in a full classroom. For example, I often do math homework problems on individual white board along with the student. Then we compare answers. If they are the same, we move ahead. If they are different, we go back through the problems step-by-step to see where we diverged. I feel students learn more this way.
I would like to hear about how others deal with this dilemma. If you are a tutor, where do you draw the line? If you are a teacher, what are your thoughts? If you are a parent, what are your feelings?
As a teacher (or even homeschooler), have you ever considered how adding filmmaking capabilites could enhance your teaching abilities with students?
The only materials you need to do so are a computer with high-speed internet connection, and a simple point-and-shoot digital camera with video capabilities (although higher levels of video cameras or those with more manual controls are always a plus).
Filmmaker Luke Holzmann now offers a free, online, 36-week course to all who are interested. A brief description of the course and simple materials needed (which most of us already have) can be found HERE.
Filmmaker Luke Holzmann
Many teachers, students, and adults are interested in filmmaking, but most don’t have a clue where to start if they are not actually in school especially for this purpose. Check out this exciting course, either to enhance your career skills, or as an enjoyable hobby.
A well-behaved middle-school student I tutor expressed her frustration to me with some of her formerly well-behaved classmates who now talk back to teachers and act up in the classroom.
When my student asked these friends why they now behave this way, they say it’s all about fitting in and being accepted by the “cool” group.
Anyone not accepted by this group is a target for their bullying. My student has a mature attitude and refuses to behave this way; as a consequence, she has to stand up to various forms of insults and bullying constantly.
At one point, our school debated putting in cameras to film student behavior in every corridor and classroom, and then decided not to.
It may have been both about cost, and about invasion of privacy, as well as our school being a high-level college prep school in a Middle Eastern country.
However, lack of cameras is no longer a protection for privacy for anyone, as every student is now capable of filming anything and everything and posting it anonymously and publicly on-line. As this article explains, many students are now purposely provoking a teacher to the breaking point with the advance intention of filming it and posting it on-line. This form of bullying is both demeaning to teachers, and can cost many teachers their jobs.
All teachers need to remember that now, the eyes of the world are watching every second. This applies not just to teachers, but to everyone. Teachers, however, are more vulnerable because students with evil intentions are purposely setting out to put them in a compromised situation.
Most students do not find history an interesting subject before graduating from high school (unless they have an exceptional teacher, of course). Most students see no point to studying history, or what relevance most of it has to their lives now.
Linear societies define EXPLICIT GOALS (whether moral or material), and set out to deliberately attain them. When these goals are reached, people feel triumphant. This leads us to view life as SELF-DIRECTED, and our personal lives as SELF-MADE. These ideas instilled in Western societies the idea of LINEAR PROGRESS toward an EVER-BETTER MATERIAL and societal future. These were the ages of belief in technological progress solving all problems, of Manifest Destiny in America.
For example, the television series Star Trek was so popular precisely because it supported the idea of hope and progress being able to solve all future social problems of hunger, poverty, wise government through democratic institutions. Furthermore, they go throughout the universe spreading hope, light, and progress by means of the morally upstanding Federation (seeming to represent the ideas of the United States after WWII) against the Klingon Empire of Darkness (seeming to represent the Western ideas of communist empires of evil and darkness).
Dilemmas of an Expat Tutor 