Too often in education, we see the need for educators to act more like parents. The students in our classrooms are more likely than any other time, to come from broken homes, homes where the parents have to constantly work in order for the family to survive, or from homes where the parents don’t care enough to provide the parenting that the children so desperately need. Because of this, the teachers in the classroom, the administrators in the office, the cooks, custodians, bus drivers, and others are finding themselves needing to pick up the proverbial “slack” and become a pseudo-parent.
Sometimes, I wonder what it would have been like to teach in the 1950’s where just about every kid seemed to have the support at home that they needed to grow up and succeed in life. Don’t get me wrong, I realize that the 50’s were no cake walk in education, but it causes me to stop and think about how different my classroom would be if the vast majority of my students had two parent homes where time was taken to teach the “family education.” The “family education” to me, means parents teaching kids right from wrong, respect, how to cope with adverse situations among myriad others. Due to the fact that the storied family unit of “Leave it to Beaver” is becoming more and more the minority, we are seeing educators working to find new methods to teach their students not only the curriculum of the school, but the “family education” as well.
Some have said that a “hands-on” method of learning is the most effective manner to teach students. I agree with this to a great extent, but believe that education can go much, much further. Hands-on learning allows a student to experience doing task or activity, but does not necessarily affect the emotional growth of the student, which is, in my opinion, a very important part of the modern educators’ job. In a day and age where students are coming to school without the support at home, without the “family” education I spoke of earlier, it has become the responsibility of educators to fill in the missing pieces.
"Character education" and "service learning" are buzzwords that are getting quite a bit of attention in educational circles today. At one time, there would not have been a need for these ideas to even exist because it used to be the responsibility of the family unit to teach the children respect, right from wrong, etc. Unfortunately, this isn’t the fifties any longer and we can’t always depend on parents to do their job. The world has changed since then, and in my short experience, it has changed quite a bit in the last six years. Character education and service learning have been around for some time and have long been used as a method by which teachers are able to effectively blend the hands-on experience while teaching the values that the community at large holds dear.
I strongly believe that all great teachers teach because they want to change the lives of their students for the better. With that said, I see the need for the modern educator to work to impact their students in the best way possible, and until something comes around that is definitely better than character education mixed with service learning, I believe it is our responsibility to utilize these tools to change the lives of our students.
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