Contents
1. Introduction
2. Art and students’ development
3. Satisfaction of teaching
4. Social skills
5. Types of teachers
6. Conclusion
7. Bibliography
Introduction
Traditionally, teaching was very important and often high professionalism of
teachers defines the level of education students receive. This is why it is
extremely important to carefully analyze the experience of teachers’ work
that can help better understand possible advantages and drawbacks of different
ways of teaching which are characteristic of different types of teachers.
In fact, nowadays teaching methods and techniques may vary dramatically. Nonetheless,
there are some universal values and basic principles that should be always taking
into consideration while analyzing the work of a teacher or while becoming a
professional teacher. Basically, in the current situation it is necessary to
pay a particular attention to individual approach to each student in order to
better understand the personality needs and demands of each student. Also it
is necessary to develop essential social skills in the process of teaching to
the extent that students could be socialized and become an integral part of
modern society.
At the same time, it is necessary to remember that teaching is the two-side
road where teacher and students constantly interact and influence each other.
In such a situation, it is extremely important that teaching brought satisfaction
not only to students but teachers as well.
Anyway, the major goal of each teacher should be the development of their students
in accordance to the basic demands of the modern world as independent, intellectual,
social, and responsible citizens. The basic goals of education and teaching
in particular, may be achieved in different ways and in this respect, the effectiveness
of teaching depends on a type of a teacher which may vary dramatically.
In such a way, in order to become a real teacher it is necessary to clearly
understand all basic needs of students and demands contemporary teachers should
meet.
Art and students development
Obviously, in the current situation the role of art in the teaching process
and educating of students is extremely important and cannot be underestimated.
It is necessary to underline that art should be an integral part of the teaching
process because it is due to art students can develop in harmony and develop
essential skills, acquire important experience and get accustomed to universal
humanitarian principles and values which can really unite people and contribute
to tolerance, equality and prosperity of human society.
This is why it is necessary to analyze the lessons of Mrs Cotter in a Junior
Kindergarten classroom and Mrs Brandon in a Grade 6 classroom. Basically, both
teachers use arts in their lessons that is obviously quite useful for the students
development. It should be pointed out that in Mrs Cotter’s classroom students
attempt to the abstractly painted black area near the center of Miss Judy’s
painting. Basically, this activity is quite interesting and involving students
to work. At the same time, it is really thought provoking and emotionally colored
because students really want to participate in this activity and, what is more
important, their creative abilities are involved since they should develop their
creative thinking in order to qualify in their own way the visual information
they see. In such a way, students have to develop their creative and critical
thinking since to fulfill this task they should synthesize the visual information
with the emotional and intellectual experience they were having with the work
of art .
At the same time, it should be pointed out that the lesson is a bit chaotic
because students, being overwhelmed with emotions, are getting to be more and
more involved, some students cannot even stay on their seats and start to interrupt
each other in attempts to draw the attention of the teacher, which, in her turn,
seems to get losing the control over the classroom. Obviously, it does not contribute
to higher effectiveness of the lesson because some students are deprived while
the whole class is getting to be in a kind of mess.
At the same time, the teacher does not directly link this lesson to previous
ones this is why it is hardly possible to trace whether students are prepared
for such activities and what is its long-term purpose because it is logically
to wonder whether students have already had such experience or probably this
activity is totally new for them. This is why, on analyzing this lesson, it
is possible to recommend starting with some activities which would help student
to revise what they have lardy done during previous lessons and, consequently,
they would establish a strong link between their past experience and current
learning process.
In this respect, another lesson in Mrs Brandon grade 6 classroom is quite different.
It is necessary to underline that the teacher starts with the reminding of what
students were doing during the previous lesson. When students answer is getting
to be evident that they dealt with symbols and, what is more, similarly to the
previous lesson art was also involved. To put it more precisely, students learned
what symbols are and at the present moment they are supposed to present their
own symbols which they depicted in the form of paintings. As a result, the effect
of such activity is, to a certain extent similar to the previously discussed
lesson, i.e. this activity provokes creative thinking of students, though it
is probably not always critical since they deal with symbols of their own and,
thus, express their subjective views. This is why it is possible to recommend
asking students to take into consideration the point of view of their peers
in order to critically evaluate the symbols they have drawn. Also it is possible
to recommend trying group work when students can critically evaluate each others
symbols.
Furthermore, both lessons are characterized by involvement of art which though
are quite helpful for the development of students verbalization skills since
they have to either convert visual information into verbal one, as it is in
the case of Mrs Cotter’s classroom, or, in contrast, they should convert
the verbal information into visual one when students qualify visual image into
their own words, as it is in the case of Mrs Brandon classroom, when students
express their ideas in the form of paintings. In such a way, a multiple effect
of development of creative and critical thinking along with verbal and communicative
skills and abilities is achieved. In fact, students really learn the power of
words .
Satisfaction of teaching
However, it is not only students that benefit from such lessons but teachers
as well. At the same time, it is necessary to remember that the high level of
teaching satisfaction may be achieved only on the condition of high effectiveness
of a lesson. Obviously, teaching satisfaction is extremely important since it
stimulates teachers to constantly improve their skills and abilities trough
acquisition of new experience. On the other hand, it is necessary to remember
that satisfaction of teaching is mutual for both teachers and students and both
benefit from it.
In this respect it is worthy to note that there are several basic satisfactions
. First of all, it should be pointed out that teaching provides an opportunity
for teacher to introduce to their students the idea that they can progress constantly
and that education is a constant and uninterruptible process which lasts as
long as life endures. In such a context both lessons may be considered to be
quite successful since they establish strong connection of students teaching
to arts which naturally will always accompany them in certain way. At the same
time, such a combination of art and teaching contributes to the development
of skills, such as creative thinking, which will be helpful in the future life
of students. Moreover, students can realize that the skills they acquire in
the lessons discussed could be widely used in their everyday life since both
symbols and qualification of visual information along with its verbal interpretation
are a constituent part of human life and are always used, even though they used
unconsciously.
Another satisfaction of teaching is immortality. Applying this criterion to
the lessons discussed it is again possible to remind that it is hardly possible
to find something more immortal than art. In this respect, it is worthy of note
that immortality implies not simply realization of eternity of life but it also
implies the persistence of certain ideas and images that can be once learned
and then get deep rooted in human mind. For instance, a successful qualification
or symbol students in the lessons discussed have once found, or the image of
teachers, and so on.
The latter, by the way, opens new opportunities for revealing another satisfaction
of teaching – the performance. What is meant here is the fact that teaching
provides teachers as well as students with ample opportunities to play their
own cello. At the same time, it is necessary to underline that the role of teachers
in such a situation is extremely important and, returning to the lessons by
Mrs Cotter and Mrs Brandon, it is possible to estimate that Mrs Cotter provided
freedom for students to perform their own cello practically without limitations,
though this, as it has been already mentioned above, may be considered a kind
of drawback because it brought up certain turbulence in the teaching process.
Instead, Mrs Brandon, along with ample opportunities of performance, provided
her students with a good organization of the lesson preserving sufficient control
over the classroom.
Furthermore, teaching also provides ample opportunities for artistry and memorable
forms of aesthetic experience that could be observed during both lessons discussed
above. The importance of artistry in the teaching process can be hardly underestimated
because it really contributes to the development of highly aesthetic, intellectual,
and creative personalities. On the other hand, teachers also benefit from it
because they really reach the balance and harmony in the teaching process through
involvement of students into artistic work or sharing similar artistic values.
Also, it is necessary to remember that passion for learning is another important
factor that contributes to the satisfaction of teaching. Unquestionably, if
teachers manage to provoke a profound passion for learning in their students
than it will be possible to state that they have achieved one of the major successes
in teaching. In fact, passion for learning is probably the cornerstone of the
development of students since it makes the learning process less difficult and
often it may be achieved by means of implementation some interesting ideas in
the teaching process. In this respect, the lessons discussed may be also assessed
positively since they provoked profound interest of students to art and creative
work, developed their critical thinking and communicative skills.
Finally, it is worthy of note that often teachers forget that the child made
whole. The teachers whose work is analyzed obviously realize the importance
of this idea because they do not limit themselves with certain learning material,
or certain set of skills their students have to develop. Instead, they provide
possibilities for creative work, intellectual, aesthetical and social development
of their students.
Social skills
Unquestionably, social skills are very important for effective development of
students. In fact, social skills are the basis of the future life of students
because they need to be naturally integrated into social life, they have to
possess high communicative skills and abilities in order to constitute an integral
part of the community they live in.
From this perspective, the lessons discussed are also quite effective because
they provide students with ample opportunities to develop their social skills.
To put it more precisely, they could better understand each others when they
attempted to qualify the visual information they saw, or when they attempted
to express their ideas and emotion by means of visual images which served as
symbols.
At the same time, it is possible to recommend wider using of group work since
it will make the development of social and communicative skills more efficient,
while both teachers basically focused on the work with the whole class, depriving
students of a possibility to work in groups of their peers and, consequently,
minimizing opportunities to establish social links within such groups during
the teaching process.
Types of teachers
Naturally, willingly or not teachers play the defining role in the teaching
process. This is why it is very important to clearly understand what a type
of teacher could be the most effective in the current situation to the extent
that such a teacher could achieve possibly better results in educating students.
In fact, it is practically unarguable fact that every teacher is unique but,
nonetheless, it is possible to classify all teachers into several types according
to their style of work. At the same time, it is equally unarguable that the
type of teaching produce a significant impact on the teaching process at large
and on each lesson in particular, creating a particular relations between teacher
and students.
Generally speaking, it is possible to single out three basic types of teachers.
The first type is authoritarian. Traditionally, authoritarian teachers tend
to plan furniture arrangements in the classroom and to plan schedules that seldom
vary. Basically, such teachers believe that this is their sole responsibility
to make all class rules and establish consequences for misbehavior.
The second type is permissive. Teachers that follow this style often appear
to be tentative and powerless and, by the way, it is possible to say that Mrs
Cotter tends to be one of representatives of such teaching style, which is obviously
not the best one. In fact, typically for such teaching style Mrs Cotter made
few rules and was inconsistent in establishing or delivering the consequences
of misbehavior that led to the effect of loosing control over the classroom.
Finally, there is a democratic type of teachers to which Mrs Brandon may be
referred to. Traditionally, democratic teachers are neither permissive nor autocratic,
instead they are firm and reasonably consistent about their expectations for
academic achievement and students behavior. This is why, as Mrs Brandon has
shown such teachers provide their students with certain freedom but do not loose
the control over the situation and to do this they often discuss the need for
rules with their students.
Conclusion
Thus, taking into account all above mentioned, it is possible to conclude that
teachers play an extremely important role in the process of education. In actuality,
they can define the outcome of the teaching process and it is their responsibility
to provide possibly more efficient development of students. As the analysis
of the lessons discussed above has shown there are different types of teachers
among which democratic one is the most effective one. At the same time, to achieve
positive results in teaching it is necessary to provide harmonic development
of students, including not only their intellectual but also aesthetic and social
skills. Unquestionably, nowadays teachers should widely use art in the teaching
process since, as both lessons demonstrate, it can really contribute to the
development of students personality, especially their critical thinking, creative
and verbal skills. On the other hand, the development of social skills was significant
but potentially it could be more effective if group work was used. Anyway, such
lessons should be viewed as an essential experience that provides opportunities
for the further professional growth of those who want to become a good teacher.
Bibliography:
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3. Meier Catherine R., James C. DiPerna, Maryjo M. Oster. Importance of Social
Skills in the Elementary Grades. Education and Treatment of Children 29 no3
409-19 Ag 2006.
4. Quinn, R. The Artistic Possibility of Words. Kappa Delta Pi Record 42 no2
88-91 Wint 2006.
