To Teach The Journey Of A Teacher Analysis

To teach is to choose a challenging life. It requires passion in the profession and genuine love and interest in children especially when one opts to teach young children. One must have a heart and needs to be ethical, reflective, caring and hopeful. It requires faith in yourself and respect for individual children, willing to work against the odds in order to contribute to an evolving environment. Ayers’s book, To Teach: The Journey of a Teacher is a book I consider as a work that strives for educational reform. Ayers write from his personal experience and then draws his educational philosophy around those experiences. William Ayers writes, as teacher, parent, student and observer, of the children he has known and of the things that actually
Teaching is always a teacher’s own. Ayers sees the pieces of his own teaching everywhere. He then recounts the story of playing “I Spy” with a child who, when he spied something brown, proudly pointed out herself. She had been educated to admire her difference, instead of being ashamed of. Chapter 2, Seeing the Student, presents the story of his youngest child, Chesa, who had a dogged determination while his family was worried his stubbornness could raise a problem. He then relates a story of working with ten-year-old kids, asking them to describe themselves to reveal their characters to their class and the teacher. Most teachers see and label their students in class which deprives them from class. Ayers argues that teaching means going beyond labels. An important skill for any teacher to learn is to create a learning environment which entails careful and thoughtful planning to engage student learning. Another skill is the ability of the teacher to build bridges with children and how to connect with them in order to learn about their kids, and understand their strengths, talents, and
According to him, curriculum is not a “thing” people need and need to learn. It is something communicated to children through a teacher. It should be conceived as a dynamic aspect. It should be tailored to children’s individual needs and interests making it more fascinating and meaningful to them. Keeping track on students’ progress and further development is one important aspect that a teacher should do. But how should teachers manage this? Ayers, like Ken Robinson had been criticizing standardized tests. They, and I for one, firmly believe that standardized tests play biases and do not really measure one’s skills, abilities, emotions and creativity. It kills students’ creative ideas. Ayers belief is that to reform education for the better, we must go in the exact opposite direction, away from standardization of curricula, teaching, and assessment. Educators should have thought differently about education, allowing students to tap into the motivation of students to raise student achievement and honor the diversity of students. Instead, a different sort of education, one that harnesses the intrinsic motivation and creativity of students is