Well we had two interesting debates in two classes today. The morning debate dealt with the inclusion of disabled students within the classroom. Wow, what a topic to be debating. Both sides had such strong arguments and such good points. I can definitely see the advantage of having students integrated into a classroom, and yet at the same time there are such good arguments against. Someone really should design a study to look at the impact of integration upon norm- and disabled-students, their families, their teachers, the administration, the system. The study should be have a large data pool, be cross-cultural, cross-gender, longitudinal and no receive no funding from potentially benefiting industries. I can’t imagine what a study like this would cost, or how it could be executed, but the results would be worth their weight in gold… perhaps more by the time that the results are published.
The afternoon debate dealt with the idea of how much a teacher should help individual students. I think the two extremes that were provided was something to the effect of “… I would stay as long as I needed to, so that the student got the concept” and “… I teach from… to 3:30”. I think that I would fall somewhere between the two. I think that if I was ever confronted with such a situation I would have to ask myself two questions 1) “can I justify spending this time with a student instead of my family?” and 2) “can I justify to myself, my decision not to help this student?”. After all at the end of the day what do we have left if not our own values? I figure that as long as I hold my values of family comes before work and live for the dreams of others then I can say that I did good.
Q
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2 comments:
Qian,
I totally agree. I sort of stuck my foot in my mouth in that class. I'm not saying I would stay every day until 7 to help a student, but I would help them until they got it whenver they needed. A student would not want to stay until seven either!! And the situation might arise only 2 or 3 times in a whole year, but I would like to leave students the option. Plus I could give them my home phone number so they can call if they have trouble with homework. For myself as a student I always liked having these options, even if I never used them!
Hey there,
I do agree with you concerning that more options the better. I like your plan of giving the options and I think I might do that myself.... Don't worry about sticking your foot in your mouth either... I'm just glad that you brought up such a good topic of discussion.
Q
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