Presentations

One of the more interesting presenatations to me was the one that was done during Tuesday's class where the speaker talked about the very high expectations that have been placed on teachers not only to be educators of book knowledge but also emotional and social educators. I thought it was interesting that the speaker believed that that was not part of the job. Of course, teachers are not nearly paid enough for the work that they do, but I personally believe that the emotional and social education of students is a large part of what educators are teaching. All of those things flow and work together to create this larger chunk of knowledge that will carry students through their life. Teachers are not just supposed to teach facts but general life lessons. With that being said, I believe one of the other points that the presenter touched on was the need for a concern for the teachers' emotional health if they are going to be held responsible for their students' emotional well-being. This is totally right. Some teachers spend more time in a day with their students than those same students spend with their parents at home and as a result, teachers get to experience a lot of the students' transitions, etc. and need to know how to cope with and help a child that has a bad home life or just when students have a bad day to have the skill and knowledge to play counselor for long enough so that they can be effective in their primary task of teaching. I thought this was a really important and interesting subject to explore and I was very glad to see it brought to light.