I wrote the following words back in January 2009 following the death of my uncle, who was extremely important in my life. I have not added this to my blog until now. I am ready to share some very deep feelings that came out of a lot of emotion. This is not about my uncle's death, but about how we as people, children and adults, learn about ourselves and our life. I think that it is worth considering what I have to share. Thanks for reading this when you have time." Larry
"This morning I woke up at 5:00 a.m. because I had to put on paper my feelings about a very special person. My uncle died this past weekend and I wanted to share with others the important role he played as a teacher in my life. After completing this effort, I thought about what I said about my uncle and how it relates to our work as secondary educators. This is what I wish to share in my blog today.
People are educated in two ways during their life, formally and informally. Formal education relates to learning at school through classroom experiences, reading, and discussing what we learn. Informal learning comes from the daily experiences that we have in our lives that are not attached to classroom lessons with standards and specific learning outcomes in mind.
Most of our learning is actually informal, but that does not mean that some of those informal lessons aren’t learned in school. It also doesn’t mean that informal learning is less important than what we learn in a formal setting. In reality, thinking about what I learned from my uncle was much more important than what I learned in any class. I may not have had academic success without the informal learning that I have gained through out my life.
I often tell people that my academic high school experience at San Fernando High School did not prepare me well for UCLA, but it was a perfect non-academic learning experience for my career as a teacher. Our informal experiences are so important and sometimes we as educators lose track of the relative importance of the experiences gained informally.
When I think back on my school years, I remember almost every teacher. As an educator, I remember every principal or supervisor that I have worked for. I have learned a great deal from each of these people. Most of the time my informal learning has been positive, but sometimes what I learned was negative based on what I experienced and what I observed. I learned valuable lessons from both types of experiences.
As teachers, counselors, or administrators do we really spend enough time thinking and discussing how we impact our students, not in a formal, but in an informal way? We are role models because we stand in front of impressionable young people, this comes with the job. We may think that we have been hired to teach content to our students, but we have really been hired to teach children. Yes, we teach them content, concepts, and skills, but we also teach more in a very informal way.
My uncle taught me the importance of dedication, hard work, fairness, generosity, and how to relate to others. What he taught me was reinforced by my teachers and supervisors over many years. What kind of world would we be leaving our students if we teachers believed that we only taught math, science, English, social studies, the arts, physical education or other electives as defined by the scope and sequence developed by our school district? We teach so much more than that. But we have to be sure that we teach those other qualities thoughtfully and carefully because they are learned by students through their observations of us. They learn from what we say and how we act. Our responsibility is great and extremely important, especially if we are the best or only positive adult role model in our students’ life.
We rarely learn about the informal influences we have on our students’, but make no mistake, we are informal teachers to every student we have, and our teaching needs to provide a positive experience for every child we touch. If we are doing that, then we are doing a Herculean job of educating our students. But if we are not, then we could cause our students pain and suffering through out their life. Each of us has to make conscious choices about how we do our job as a teacher and how we use the power of being a role model for our students."
I would like to hear what this item led you to think about as an educator.
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2 comments:
We are fortunate to someone in our lives like your uncle. In my case, there was my dad, my mother, aunt, friends and lately my wife and daughter who at various stages of my growth took turns in schooling me as you pointed out- informally. What seemed to be everyday simple conversations almost always turns out to be valuable life lessons. Yet it takes a particular skill to be able to identify these and I am afraid my radar is not always on to be sensitive to these.
I remember being disciplined when I was younger by my teachers and they would tell me to think about what I have done. Like many of the young ones in our classrooms today- I merely repeated what I was expected to say without giving it much thought. After a few moments, I am on with my next shenanigans because I did not learn anything. I don't even remember the teacher's name or the event that got me in trouble in the first place.
Years later, I am noticing that part of maturity is the ability to approach things with a bit more of circumspection, caution and reflection. Yes, higher order thinking skills. More certainly, I know exactly who is involved, what they were wearing and what their thoughts were.
It may be a stretch to link relationships with critical thinking but it seems to go hand-in-hand for I cannot see how we can wisely or not, come to the decisions we made without the influences provides by our loved ones.
Thank you for adding to the conversation. I would hope that many educators would read your comment, because I know that they would share your thoughts and perhaps connect the words to their very important job of educating our children.
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