Looking back at the past few semesters I've noticed this fantastic progression of nurturing by the professors that the program did, maybe without evening noticing. We had Beth for intro, who was the sweetest most animated out of the professors, which I feel was good for us who were transfers or just youngin's in general. Then we needed to get interviewed to get into the program, for me that was my introduction to Jessica and Aaron... Whoa was I intimidated, but after the interview, I was very excited to work with them and learn from there. After Beth we were introduced to Jessica and Curriculum and Instruction. Jessica still embodied the sweet, nurturing aspects as Beth, but also had sarcasm and tough love to thicken our skin. I feel it was also a good balance of her sarcasm that was a subtle introduction to working with older students, even though it was all elementary that we learned about in her class, it was still in a good characteristic and concept to have mulling over in the back of your mind, preparing us for the secondary students we would be dealing with the semester after. So senior year comes for some of us, and it's time of Practice and Theory with Aaron. Aaron has a different kind of nurturing, it's the kind that is tough and harsh, but has great intentions on truly preparing us for whats to come in student teaching and possibly our own classroom. I was very intimidated and puzzled by this immediate difference of teaching from both Beth and Jessica, and it took me a while to get use to it, but I now appreciate and respect Aaron's way of teaching.
I find the way I am learning and what I am learning to be really impacting and challenging, which is something that I don't ever feel I encountered in such a stressful manner. Which of course doesn't sound like a positive remark, but it truly is, because I know watching my mentor teachers, that this is the name of the game. This will be my everyday life with lessons, bureaucracy, and life, and I will need to constantly be changing with the times and the core concepts and the mentality of my students. I also know, and this isn't to belittle my mentor teachers, that I am being trained to be a contemporary art teacher, which is different then what I am seeing with in my observations. I need to find ways to teach students about the world through art, not just teaching them about art and the techniques and the end result. I feel there is more metaphor and symbolic relevance within our lessons that we are creating, compared to what I've seen in the observations. This to me is more of a challenge and Aaron is drilling it into our heads to be constantly thinking about this.
So this semester the majority of my professors are men, this is something very new to me. I've barley had male art teachers in my life, it's always been hippy woman that are super nurturing and soft when it comes to learning, a lot of coddling and positive reinforcement. Now that I am surrounded by masculine ways of teaching and learning, I have a good base to compare and contrast the difference's I see. Now I know that is teetering on the edge of generalizing, and it may be, but I'm just going to put this down in permanence to have a reference to look back at later in life to see if these observations are still in play. So something I've noticed within this semester is that male teachers tend to have a lot of sarcasm and sass within there attitude towards there students, thus creating a playful, but harsh environment. This I believe can be good for the students to be constantly on their toes, thinking about what they are doing, but still having a good time learning and communicating. I don't know if this is good for all students, but something I've also noticed with my male teachers is that they are really good at reading people and their emotions, they will push you hard, but when they see that you are about to break they give into the nurturing aspects seen with my female teachers. This is includes listening, consoling and giving advice. I almost find it to be more conducive when the male teachers do this, it shows you that they are being very supportive in that moment by showing you a different side of their personality. Reminds me of how cat's are, they are to themselves for most of the time, but when they choose to be affectionate, you really appreciate it, because it doesn't happen often.
I've also noticed a few more characteristics within the gender difference's of teachers. One being ambition. In this article I was reading called Gender Differences in Secondary School Teachers' Control over Classroom and School Policy, the authors talk a lot about how the schools are run by males compared to female, and this has to do with career ambitions and juggling school life with home life. This is something I've noticed with multiple professors this semester, they contain a lot of ambition on their behalf and expect a lot out of themselves, this then is channeled through to what they expect from their students. This can be a positive approach and a negative approach. I know for me, this semester has been very strenuous due to heavy work loads and strict standards, I sometimes wonder if the professors take into account that students have lives outside of the classroom as well as 3 to 4 other classes. But it's good to be pushed hard and challenged. I've noticed though that the classes I find to be the most time consuming are those that are run by male professors, I then think about the loads they carry and how this may be why they believe students can carry the same load.
I find this whole observation of the differences I see within the classroom concerning gender and nurturing to be intriguing and hope to keep ya'll informed as my research and observations conclude.
No comments:
Post a Comment