Thursday, February 17, 2011

History of Teaching

After reading about history of teaching I thought it is very interesting in how America has developed its education over the centuries.  It is very interesting to see how we went from schools teaching mainly religion, Latin, and Greek to now separating religion from public schools, and focusing on math, reading, and other things.  I don't think there is anything wrong with that, but it just shows how much change America has gone through.  Another example showing how much the school aspects have changed would be the emphasis on gender.  Before, women only went to school to learn how to read then taken home to learn to be a good Christian wife and homemaker.  Men were the only teachers and only boys proceeded with school.  Boys still didn't go to school as long as they do now, but it was more important for boys to get an education than girls.  During the 20th century, finally women were able to become teachers, but not without being considered a social outcast and a new name, "spinster."  Meaning not married and unlikely to marry.  After a while society, and there cruel way of punishing people that are different from the norm, started calling those male and female teacher's gay.  Now if it is true I don't think that it is cruel to be gay, but to call someone that without knowing if they are or not is wrong.  In my opinion, and probably many others, when that happened during the 20th century it never really died out and is still going on today.  I believe that is why we don't see very many men teachers in the elementary levels.  According to many in society teaching lower grades makes you seem weaker and more feminist then being a real man with a real man's job.  I think their needs to be better promotion for male teachers in today's world.  Women teachers are very important in the schools, too, but there needs to be an increase for male teachers in the elementary grades to show children that men and women can both be teachers.

Thursday, February 10, 2011

Critical Pedagogy

There is so many things that you can say about critical pedagogy.  The problem, or good thing about it, is that there is no right or wrong way to define it.  It is all about what you believe it to be, which was confusing to me at first, but it got me to really think about what I thought it meant.  I believe that it means to  think about how we live our lives and as teachers what we teach.  Do we teach on our own terms, or do we teach from our experiences, and ultimately end up teaching like our previous teachers?  A term that is very important to understand and that was said in the reading was culture.  That word is thrown around so much and do we really know what it means?  I was taught it meant something different than us.  Like the Native American Culture, or African American Culture.  Many people preach to learn about different cultures, but don't do anything to help us learn about it.  Classes still teach with an air of white superiority over other cultures, and I don't learn anything positive about other people's cultures.  When we become teachers, we really have to learn about other cultures, and more importantly, appreciate those cultures.  I want all my students to feel like I understand them and accept every culture even if it is different from my own.