Student Responses

Western New Mexico University School of Education
Student Responses to Questions:Why Teach? What is our Vision?

Student:
Melinda Leuthold
Foundations of Ed.
1/20/04

Our Vision

What is that we, as modern educators, must seek to accomplish? Education no longer can be defined by the rote memorization of the basic facts of any given subject area as perhaps it was a hundred years ago , or even fifty. The breadth of human knowledge has so exponentially expanded in the last century that it has probably come time to redefine how we educate.

We are living in an era of the individual, the specialist, and yet our future will depend on our understanding of how we must operate as a cohesive, mutually aware whole. We live in a country of unlimited access to information and resources, and yet we are so overstimulated and daunted by the volume of what we see and experience that many are made to feel incapable of wielding the amazing tools we have today. We have bred a society that takes too much for granted, and so the meaningfulness of education has taken a serious blow.

Educators, we must be cunning! We must develop our senses of intuition and communication, honing our skills every day that we may quickly discover how to ignite the curiosity and potential that most certainly exists in each child we will encounter. Today, we clearly understand that capability is not something that can be measured with standardized testing; capability is the sleeping giant in each person that must be awakened and fostered to its greatest potential. Passion, and a comprehensive whole-world view is the greatest gift we have the opportunity to offer our students. We need to make connections for these children and in turn teach them to make their own, for then they will have a context for how to understand their world and how to best make use of it.

There is no way to make any child excited about everything they must learn for a well rounded education. However, we can work to nurture the spirit of learning in every child. The spirit of learning is fueled by interest, and if we can spark interest, we can introduce a child to the immense satisaction that comes when we begin to learn. That satisfaction is what we must teach them to relish, because from that sense of satisfaction one begins to crave knowledge, crave deeper understanding for all things, and from that point forward education becomes a byproduct of the search for knowledge.
Education is not a process by which the teacher 'teaches' the student any longer. Education is reciprocal, they must teach us what they need to learn, and we must learn how to teach each child. We must be willing to challenge ourselves way beyond the perameters of what our paychecks reflect. We must instill enthusiasm, desire, esteem, and willingness, and we must do it by example.