chap 8

The article this week worked well as a reminder of the many things we must look out for during our observations. It was a bit basic in the information it relayed. Most of the suggestions seemed to be common sense. Of course the argument can be made that far too often many of these suggestions don't show up in many teacher's actual practice. From what I have been able to observe from my teachers throughout my time in school is that if they are not following these suggestions it is because they are burnt out and don't care, not because they are ignorant of the importance of such suggestions. The heavy reliance on filling out little charts to help teachers acknowledge every little aspect of the classroom experience is becoming to be something I see as a problem in the field of education. Luckily good teachers that I have observed are not so married to this practice. It is good to use some of these tools as a teacher but the overuse is common and detrimental to the classroom teacher. This problem is beginning to reinforce my view of there being a major split between actual classroom teaching and the field of education. If the field of education wanted to produce more effective classroom teachers it would work towards becoming more of a apprentice type path of education than a research driven operation. The over abundance of forms in in the education field works great for for its pursuit of research but at the same time can cloud the vision of aspiring teachers to effectively advance towards their goals of working with a group of complex human beings. Teacher preparation could stand to gain with more emphasis on field placement and student teaching. If these two entities became the pillar of teacher prep then information in articles like chapter 8 would become something that is picked up in a more natural way.