Just last Friday, I had the pleasure of being a substitute teacher for a Kindergarten class. I had no idea what I was In store for. The second that I walked into the room, I could see the combustible energy in the students just waiting to ignite as soon as the principal, who was introducing me to the class, left the room. In a calm voice, I introduced myself to the class. Hello, my name is Mr. X and waited for that programmed answer good morning Mr. X in unison. What a good feeling. I said to myself “What can possibly go wrong. These kids are putty in my hands”. Not two seconds later, the principal left the room.
I began to read the lesson plans that the teacher had left for the day. As I skimmed through them, it seemed easy to follow. I read step-by-step to figure out what to do first. Before I could even comprehend what I was reading, there was a student touching my leg saying, “Excuse me Mr. X, It’s time to do the daily weather”. As I looked down at the lesson plan, she was absolutely right. As soon I said “Daily”, the whole class was up and in a circle ready to go. Following the lesson plan, I asked the students what the weather was like. “No No No” they shrieked. “We have to sing the song first”. Confused as all hell, I said “Oh yea, the song”. I counted down from three and the students began to sing this song. After the song, I asked the students what the weather was like. They answered and I praised them.
Next on the list was the days of the week. I assumed that there was a song for this activity also, so I just asked the class to sing the song. The class sang the song without hesitation. I decided to spice it up a little. I asked th class what day comes after Monday. No one could respond. I asked what day comes before Tuesday and still no one could respond. Maybe I am a little bit of a extremist but I believe that these Kindergarten student should be able to understand the days of the week.
I began to try to find a way to correct this simple problem but it was too late. Is it possible that as students, we are programmed to simply take in information without fully understanding what this information means, and spit the words out as given? The comical similarity is that I have been in college for about three years now and I cannot remember what information was given to me last semester. It may not be on the same level as comprehending a child’s song but, Is our educational system really based on passing classes? Should the objective of school be to teach constructive information that can actually be applied to the student? I would like to hear anyone’s opinion
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2 comments:
Such an interesting question you pose. When I was younger I learned to memorize lists of spelling words so I could get a good scores on the tests. Soon after the test I would forget how to spell the words. This 'skill' was something I took with me all throughout school. Though I always got good grades, and was very "intelligent" according to tests, there are many things I never truly learned. As future teachers how can we change this and actually teach our students in such a way that they will retain the knowledge we pass along to them?
Congratulations on surviving kindergarten! The thought of it is truly terrifying, but they sound like they were pretty cute.
Learning things by song and other mneumonic devices are truly a wonderful way of remembering things. (I hate to admit it but sometimes i still have to go "30 days has September...) You never ever forget these and I bet that you would remember everything you learned last semester if it had been put into rhyme or song. Problem is, would you know what it means? I agree that there needs to be some understand behind it. Perhaps the teacher just hadn't gotten to this or perhaps the idea at this point is just to know the names of the days of the week?
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