Blog Post #10

Do You Teach or Do You Educate? 
Watching this video made me realize that I wanted to educate. I really did not know it was a difference between teaching and educating, but it is. I believe teaching is a way of instructing someone on something, not knowing if they really understand what you have told them. That is where educate comes in, I believe educate is instructing someone on something and the person understands and knows what you have told them. A teacher is someone who teaches but an educator is someone who informs and motivates their students to strive for the best.

 As a future educator, I want to educate my students. I want to be a mentor to my students by motivating and encouraging them to do their best. I also want my students to really learn from me and use the tools that I have given them and apply it to their lives. All while my students learning from me, I want to learn form my students. Being an educator is not all about teaching, it about being a huge impact to your students lives and making a difference.


Don't Let Them Take Pencils Home

What I gathered from reading this blog is letting students take home pencils are bad because it lowers their test scores on standardized tests. The argument I recognized in the blog was, students in low-income area schools don't have parents at home who are educated and they have jobs that do not require them to do much thinking. These students uses pencils as toys because they do not know what else to use them for. Even if you don't let these students take their pencils and paper home they are going to score low anyway. Tom and a colleague of his are going to develop a program to help parents learn skills that the teachers are teaching their children.

In my opinion, I think Tom is not trying to help the students in his school. Developing this program to help parents isn't the right thing to do. Before helping the parents you need to help the students. The students in low-income area schools need more help then others on standardized tests. The teachers in the school should come together and think of a way to better help these students on these tests. Assuming students that attend low-income area schools have uneducated parents at home isn't always true, in fact they may have some very bright parents at home who are involved in their child's education.