@mraspinall Their best. To say that you aren’t a great teacher because you aren’t beating yourself up about not doing enough is self defeatist at best and self-abusive at worst.
@mraspinall I think I understand your intent here, but this hits wrong for me. This is the type of thinking that encourages burnout and martyrdom. It is not wrong or bad for a teacher to give themselves credit for a job well done or to just stop working for a moment when they’ve given
@alfiekohn Most times, some type of vocabulary and memorization is needed to start really good discussions with young people. Folks are so focused on dunking on people these days that they’ll even pull stories out from 100-150 years ago to do it. (End)
@alfiekohn I realize where you’re going with this, but I think this is unfair to the students and teachers. First, it makes me ask questions: at what stage in Dewey’s life is this? What age kids are we talking about? Then, I ask: what did he expect, other than to tell an anecdote (1/x)
@alfiekohn so they tell their students to give the answer they know. How do we know that the class hadn’t had deep discussions before? Instead, we just fall back upon the old, “Memorization bad” trope without really thinking. (4/x)
@alfiekohn He thought that he could stroll in and ask these students this question cold and get well thought out answers? And this hypothetical teacher is made out to look like a doof, but likely just didn’t want to look stupid in front of Dewey, (3/x)