During High School Lecture teacher asked bored looking students to repeat what was just said! (colleges, teaching)
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The student's "self esteem is ruined"???????? Oh please...if that is all it takes to "ruin" someone's self esteem, we must all feel pretty worthless. I approve of what the teacher did. No problem. Sleeping student's wake- up call!
I am not the teacher in this story just an interested family member.
The teachers who "called out the student" argument is that while it is all nice to use a variety of instructional techniques other than lecture, some of the material is best suited for a classroom lecture and some material can not be learned by just reading the textbook. So for the students own good they need to pay attention.
10 years from now the student may be working in a corporate setting and expected to listen to a business executive or client do a presentation on something. They should learn to pay attention regardless if it is fascinating to them. It is the teachers role to make sure the students are learning and paying attention. I see nothing wrong with what the teacher did.
I am not the teacher in this story just an interested family member.
The teachers who "called out the student" argument is that while it is all nice to use a variety of instructional techniques other than lecture, some of the material is best suited for a classroom lecture and some material can not be learned by just reading the textbook. So for the students own good they need to pay attention.
10 years from now the student may be working in a corporate setting and expected to listen to a business executive or client do a presentation on something. They should learn to pay attention regardless if it is fascinating to them. It is the teachers role to make sure the students are learning and paying attention. I see nothing wrong with what the teacher did.
Agreed--but the teacher could have gotten the student to pay attention by walking by their desk and nudging them, asking them a relevant question, or giving them a question to discuss with a partner.
All of those things would have served the same purpose (forced the student to wake up), and none of them would have embarrassed the student, wasted anyone else's time, or increased the frustration level in the classroom.
What the teacher did wasn't wrong, necessarily. But there were better, more effective alternatives to consider next time. (Ones that won't create a "student vs. teacher" mentality)
Email_lover: I agree that students shouldn't be falling asleep during class, but think that the approach -- spending valuable time making students parrot back lecture comments -- is not a solution. CaliTerp07's suggestions serve the same purpose yet don't come with all the negative baggage as does your original scenario. If the situation described in the first post happens regularly in a class I would consider that the mark of a bad teacher. (not the falling asleep part: there's only so much a teacher can do about kids falling asleep. I mean the teacher's response.)
There are definitely better approaches to students who sleep in class.
1. Plan your class with very little lecture. Intersperse lecture material with activities the students do. Depending on the particular subject, you may want to try some group activities that require everyone in the group to contribute ala Kagan's cooperative lessons. Approach teaching as if you were a coach or mentor not the repository of all knowledge.
2. Encourage rather than discourage. Try praising kids who are listening rather than focusing on the kids who are not listening.
3. Treat each student as an individual. Know their names. Meet with them outside of class. You might try some activities that allow the kids who are not usually great at the subject to shine, so that their classmates find out that everyone has something to contribute.
4. You can take about 5 minutes at the end of the class and ask the students to reflect on what they learned or what was difficult. Have them write it down and use it to tailor your next lesson. When I taught math in the inner city, I used pages from the Sheila Tobias book about math anxiety to get the students to reflect on math and their difficulties. Often with math, no one actually teaches the kids *how* to read a math text, for example.
5. You might talk to the students about the importance of *faking* attention. It's actually a positive life skill that can get them through many difficult situations. (And, most of the time, kids trying to fake it are actually more attentive than they would be otherwise).
6. You can use humor, but be sure it is not denigrating to the students.
Harsh is not the word I would use. The teacher's approach is foolish. If he previously had the respect of any of his students, he probably just lost it.
When a teacher intentionally humiliates a student, he shows that he has already lost control of himself and the class.
It may have seemed that the students were laughing at the sleeper "making a fool of himself," but probably they all knew who the real fool was.
I hope that you are not a teacher...If you are you are part of the problem with problem students...
One teacher I had would come up with a mini-quiz on the spot over the day's lecture if he didn't think we were paying attention. He'd write 5 questions on the board, and one of them would be based on a comment or a question that someone asked in class, such as "True or False: Laura asked how the Medici family made their wealth." The five points would count toward our final grade, so and it was an easy way for him to score attentiveness in class.
I hope that you are not a teacher...If you are you are part of the problem with problem students...
Twenty-two years, ten of those middle school math. Did I insist that kids pay attention? Yes. Did I discipline kids? Yes. I also treated them with respect, and I took responsibility for the atmosphere of my classroom. Was I perfect? No, and I didn't pretend to be.
The result? They knew that I cared about them, and they treated me with respect. Some of them never did like math. Some of them struggled with it. Some of them stretched my patience - regularly. But that is never an excuse for a teacher to take out frustration on the students, then blame them for the lousy atmosphere in the classroom. (The teacher in the original post wasn't said to have blamed the kids, but several other posters have.) Some posters seem to have confused kindness with weakness.
There are definitely better approaches to students who sleep in class.
1. Plan your class with very little lecture. Intersperse lecture material with activities the students do. Depending on the particular subject, you may want to try some group activities that require everyone in the group to contribute ala Kagan's cooperative lessons. Approach teaching as if you were a coach or mentor not the repository of all knowledge.
2. Encourage rather than discourage. Try praising kids who are listening rather than focusing on the kids who are not listening.
3. Treat each student as an individual. Know their names. Meet with them outside of class. You might try some activities that allow the kids who are not usually great at the subject to shine, so that their classmates find out that everyone has something to contribute.
4. You can take about 5 minutes at the end of the class and ask the students to reflect on what they learned or what was difficult. Have them write it down and use it to tailor your next lesson. When I taught math in the inner city, I used pages from the Sheila Tobias book about math anxiety to get the students to reflect on math and their difficulties. Often with math, no one actually teaches the kids *how* to read a math text, for example.
5. You might talk to the students about the importance of *faking* attention. It's actually a positive life skill that can get them through many difficult situations. (And, most of the time, kids trying to fake it are actually more attentive than they would be otherwise).
6. You can use humor, but be sure it is not denigrating to the students.
You need to carefully think about frontal teaching being good or bad. MOST teachers are not fully effective with frontal teaching but SOME are very effective and are engaging and great presenters. The point being made is that the OP was not a first hand observer of the situation and is just painting it as a whatever party. We can't read to much into the scenario. WE have embellished the original OP which was not first hand and created a scenario that may bear no resemblance to what ever happened.
That's the old school way and some of us still use it. It works. As far as self esteem? Who gives a ****? Being stupid will be way more self esteem defeating than a momentary embarrassment.
If a teacher is being observed and doesn't call out a disconnected student it will be noted on the observation.
Kudos to you!
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