January 13, 2022; Week 02: Response to "Is the Great American Teacher Dead? "

             A great American Teacher is still visible nowadays! In every basket of almost spoiled apples, there will always be one or a few apples that are still delicious, fresh, and edible. The same is through with teachers, I am not literary saying that some teachers are rotten instead I would like to magnify the other side which states that there are still educators who are enthusiastic, resourceful, witty, reliable, and hardworking who exhaust all their resources and strength in providing diverse, engaging, inspiring and encouraging activities and discussion that stimulate the learners to think and to learn. These educators are catalysts for improving and equipping the students in order to be productive, better, wiser, and improved learners. We need to continuously remind each other to be lifelong learners who hunger for ways to improve ourselves in order to bring great change to others and to the world in general.

           A brilliant teacher in Brigham Young University namely Teacher John Ivers mentioned that the death of a great American Teacher is reflected through a superficial, boring, and uninspiring content to which students are exposed. I suddenly stopped and tried to ponder on the possible reasons why such situations occur wherein fact being a teacher is a profession and a calling at the same time because lives and future are at stake. Do these teachers stop being teachers because they are unmotivated, compensated less, supervised by weak school leaders, or perhaps they neglect the essence of their profession? Teachers are expected to build and inspire lives through education. How can we help bring back what has been stagnated? How can we lit the wick of love for teaching? He said that there are ways to resurrect the great American Teacher through the use of the following (1.) meaningfulness (2.) metacognition (3.) transformative education (4.) cultural introspection (5.) cross-cultural exploration (6.) brain research (7.) invitational education and (8.) the study of human universal extant in all cultures.

         Ancient Biographer Plutarch illustrates the concept that education is more than just exposing people to the facts. Learning is enhanced by a teaching that is passionate, positive, inspiring, inviting, meaningful, and transformative addresses world problems, shift paradigms, and attends to fragile self-concepts within its recipients.

        The world is not a perfect place to live in, there will always be flaws and predicaments along the way but as long as teachers know their purpose, they will never be shaken. As a TESOL student, I need to remind myself of the essence of being a teacher because through that I can always look for ways to improve myself in order to be an effective educator.

Questions: What are the things that you need to improve on yourself to be an effective teacher?

How can a great teacher inspire his or her students to learn?