Toulmin and Teachers

Most Americans are guided by teachers through a significant portion of their lives. These teachers are put in positions to mold and shape who students can become. Still, the teaching profession faces hard times on the status ladder. A teacher shortage plagues our nation. We can partly thank the low respect for the teaching profession as a whole. As a nation, we must find ways to change this view of one of the most important professions in the cultivation of our future.

Vern Williams presents a solution in his Internet response to this dilemma. I agree with him in saying that allowing teachers more control in the curriculum and the practices of the classroom will help to raise the status of teachers. Curriculum for schools is largely determined by groups in the government of teachers who may or may not still be practicing. Students are changing, and teaching methods need to be changing with them. Who better to invent and implement these changes than teachers who are interacting with students every day? Teachers who have seen the times change and have kept up with innovations. Teachers who could have revolutionary ideas about how to teach this new "YouTube generation" of students with attention spans as long as a YouTube video. If teachers were allowed to control what and how they taught more directly, they could teach the material better and be more appreciated for it.

Some may say that if teachers were given such freedom, students would not learn what is needed. I am not saying that standardized curriculum should be thrown out the window. I am saying that teachers who want to implement new ways to teach that curriculum should be lauded and allowed to do so. If they can make the necessary learning more stimulating for students, we can raise a generation of students who will remember fondly their teachers. These students could then be inspired to grow their own ideas on learning. This would be a welcome change from teachers in my school who teach only the state-set material using state-given textbooks with state-written worksheets and nothing else. Sure this may teach students to pass the state standardized tests, but that is about it.

Those teachers are not the ones who are remembered. I will remember my innovative teachers: the one who challenges us, but still makes us feel like he is our friend; the one who let us pick what broad, real-world topics we were interested in and then taught the concepts based on those; the one who created a role-playing game to teach us the ever important, timeless concepts of history. These are the teachers that inspire me.