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To: naturalman1975

I’d be all for that, outside the classroom. Inside it, I think teachers who keep expressing their views instead of teaching are being coercive. They’re saying, disagree with me, and instead of a c- you’ll get a d, or if you need extra time to turn in a paper, I’ll give you five minutes and then fail you. It becomes worth the student’s while to nod his head and agree, which then turns into Pavlovian training.


5 posted on 01/23/2014 2:51:58 PM PST by Eleutheria5 (End the occupation. Annex today.)
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To: Eleutheria5

Actually, if anything a student who disagrees with me is more likely to get a high mark - because he shows he must be thinking for himself.

Parroting back my own ideas will not get you good marks in my class. It’s not that agreeing with me is bad, it’s that you need to make it clear why you agree with me, not just that you do. If you’re just trying to suck up to me, it won’t work out for you.

And it’s not about ‘expressing (your) views instead of teaching are being coercive.’ It’s about not concealing your views while you are teaching.

My country’s current opposition leader was a student at my school. Our current Prime Minister was a student at our brother school in Sydney - quite literally the opposite sides of Australia’s political spectrum. (Note, both of these were students at the schools well before my time as a teacher). So I’m also not necessarily teaching the ‘average’ students. My school produces its fair share of my country’s leaders. And part of the reason we succeed in that is because of how we teach and how we are allowed to teach.


6 posted on 01/23/2014 3:01:55 PM PST by naturalman1975 ("America was under attack. Australia was immediately there to help." - John Winston Howard)
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