Inventiveness and Creativity

In a world that is constantly changing, one of the skills that company administrators look for in hiring new employees is creativity: being able to think on one's feet and the ability to be inventive in seeking solutions both within the company as well as outside in the real world. The CEO's of America's top companies have all agreed that creativity is an important skill that is necessary in the job fields of 21st century United States, but for some reason, we still find our education system smashing the creativity of our youth.  Instead of allowing students to be creative and express themselves through music, art, and drama, school districts are cutting funds for these programs and, in some areas, getting rid of fine arts programs altogether.  As teachers and administrators, how do we expect our students to learn and practice creativity if we don't provide them with any avenues to do so?  Aren't we only doing the future generations a disservice by cutting arts programs? I completely understand the argument that our test scores are dropping and we are falling behind in areas of academic study, but the solution is not to buckle down on our students even more within the same methods that are in place. A new system is needed to rejuvenate our education system. We cannot simply just keep taking away the fun from everything that students enjoy in order to improve test scores for the government.  Have we ever considered changing how things work in the classroom instead?  Maybe more teachers could implement teaching methods that allow for more creativity and that still help our students learn the material at the same time.  There are thousands of ideas out there... teachers and administrators just have to allow them into our schools.  For example, the so-called "FedEx Day" that Daniel Pink talked out about in his book, Drive, is an excellent way for students to find topics that interest them personally and come up with solutions to problems on their own.  It is a idea that stimulates student creativity while at the same time engaging them. Just like this idea, there are plenty of other ideas out there: they only need to be grasped and put into place within our school systems.  Creativity is important in the real world, and this is exemplified by the world's most famous corporations.  It is up to our educators to ready our youth for the real world, and while it is sometimes a difficult task to encourage creativity (not to mention assessing it...), it is nonetheless necessary in order to sustain a reliable workforce and a functioning economy in the competitive world market in which we compete everyday.

Reflectiveness

One of the most important elements that teachers must utilize in order to stay at the top of the game is self-reflection.  A teacher who is actively seeking to further his students' education will inevitably better his own teaching skills and reform the qualities that makes him a good teacher.  In order to maintain effective teaching in the classroom, this teacher must stop and look back into the past and analyze his own teaching as well as his students' learning.  He might inquire as to what lessons have been the most effective on his students and make adjustments accordingly to make sure that he is teaching in the best ways and making the most impact on the students.  He might also meet individually with each of the students in order to reflect on both the teaching styles and the student's learning styles.  Meeting with each student offers great advantages to a teacher.  Primarily, it allows a teacher to reflect on their teaching "from the other side of the desk." Using this method, students might be able to offer advice back to the teach exemplifying how he might be able to make the lessons more entertaining or intriguing.  Another benefit to using this method of self-reflection is that the students are able to look back at their own progress throughout the semester and see the areas in which they might need to improve. Without using methods of self-reflection that proactively seek the betterment of one's teaching skills as well as the betterment of students' learning, teaching can often become dull and boring, not to mention lacking in skill.  Reflection upon one's self is very important is the teaching career.

Enthusiasm

During my junior year of high school, I enrolled in an AP United States History course to challenge myself academically.  But, from the first class period, where I met Ms. Steindler, I thoroughly enjoyed the class and actually cared about the material that we learned about.  The material was not always easy to study, but Ms. Steindler's bubbly personality and daily enthusiasm about history kept me motivated to keep reading.  She did not only look at the textbook and see content to have her students memorize; instead, she saw the full-fledged history of our country and its importance that she wished to pass on to all of her students, myself included.  She would go out of her way to secure our learning of the content.  Apart from just purely loving history, Ms. Steindler cared that her students were also enjoying themselves inside her classroom.  She allowed us to be comfortable and relax while doing our work and bring food.  In fact, she would occasionally bring us donuts or coffee on a Friday when we had a productive week.  This class was truly one of the only classes in high school in which I cared about the content and the material, largely in response to the passion and enthusiasm of our teacher, Ms. Steindler.

Authenticity

When I was in high school, I could always tell who my favorite teachers were going to be from the first day of school.  When I walked into the classroom, I wasn't looking for a genius to teach me about chemistry or calculus or a world-renowned author to teach English to me; I was looking for a passion in my teachers that could only be described by how they interacted with their students.  A teacher who truly cares about the students learning the information while enjoying themselves is authentic.  So many teachers today are so concerned about getting their students to pass standardized tests that they have forgotten the most important aspect of being a teacher: helping students to actually understand and be able to use the material that they are studying.  An authentic teacher will go out of their way to obtain every student's interest in the subject being covered.  But another quality of an authentic teacher is the ability to relate to students. No matter how knowledgeable a person may be, they cannot be a good teacher without being able to transfer it to students.  For students to learn the best, I feel that it is most important to feel like the teacher is there to help, and not out to get them or make them fail.  Being on the same level as the students allows for easier conversation and a better connection between teacher and student.

Ms. Jones

In my opinion, compassion is one of the most important qualities that a teacher can have.  It has been my experience that students learn the best when they feel a connection to the teacher that is in the front of the classroom.  This experience came to me during my sophomore year of high school, when Ms. Jones stepped in as the new choir director of my high school.  From the moment I entered her classroom, I could just feel that Ms. Jones was going to be different from the majority of teachers that I have had during my lifetime.  She was genuine, classy, and most of all, compassionate.  Her passion for choral music was obvious to anyone who took choir that year. She loved to sing, and she loved even more to teach singing.  It was not only her goal to make all of her students receive a passing grade in choir; she truly wished that each and every soul in the room could feel the beauty of choral music and learn alongside her the joys of high school choir.  She took the time to know her students, inquiring about their lives and passions outside of music, and she truly cared about the answers that they gave.  She specialized her teaching to her choir, making every lesson interesting and even allowing the students to choose some of their own repertoire. This was a very effective strategy: the entire class absolutely loved coming to choir.  Because of Ms. Jones, I was even personally inspired to pursue music further, and today I attend one of the most prestigious choral music schools in the country.  Compassion for students is lacking in many cases this day and age, and in order to better our teaching and education in America, we must all learn from teachers like Ms. Jones who truly care about the students that they teach.

Respect

Respect is literally defined as having a sense of worth and excellence towards a person.  In every aspect of life, I believe that this definition takes different forms. For example, one might have a different type of respect for their parents than he/she does for a best friend, and the respect for the parents is most likely different than respect that the person holds for a teacher or authority figure.  Inside the classroom, respect can also take many forms.  Respect, however, is not a one-sided notion.  A teacher who expects his students to respect ideas and regulations will not get very far unless he respects his students equally.  He must take into consideration each student that enters his classroom, and by doing so, he will earn more respect from the students.  In my history of schooling, I have seen classrooms full of respect, and also the opposite.  In general, a classroom where respect is evident is a much healthier learning environment.  Teachers respect that the students are there to learn, and they care about teaching the material and making it applicable to real life.  Students respect that the teacher is not a power-hungry authoritarian looking to ruin their lives, and they feel that sense of worthiness in the classroom.  When these things are not present in the classroom, many things can go wrong.  Students will begin to not care about their school work, and teachers will in return stop caring about the material they teach.  As a result, the learning that could have been taking place inevitably ceases because neither party respects the other enough to follow through with their duties.  Respect can be established in the classroom in many different ways. First of all, a teacher must engage the students in the material from the very start of a class and let them know that they are excited to teach them. Students will see the teacher's passion and drive to help and they will be more likely to be obedient and excited about the material as well.  A teacher must take the time to get to know his students as well becasue the students have to feel comfortable in the classroom in order to learn and take the most in.  Respect is a necessary element in education. If it is lacking, like it is in many classrooms across America, education does not occur. Instead, we end up with students who are bored, uninterested, and hating school. Respect, in many ways, is a responsibility of a teacher, and not only his students.