Teaching

Darling Reya of The Gold Puppy wrote a post entitled Gratitude for My Teachers last month that touched upon the fact that teaching is indeed a choice folks make rather than a last resort to fall back on when all else fails.

Her post, which I am grateful for, also stated that some teachers are more effective than others. 

In the Dynamics and Dimensions of Teaching class I took several years ago at Fordham University we examined three approaches to teaching; Executive, Facilitator and Artist.

We then were given an assignment that required us to examine our teaching style by transcribing videos of ourselves teaching and coding each utterance and behavior.

In my final handout I likened the Executive and Facilitator approaches to a Greek God and Goddess.  I couldn't resist. (I also had a great graphic that I can't seem to transfer to this post.)

I wrote: 

The owl is the symbol of the goddess of wisdom, Athena. She is a patron and ally and representative of the Facilitator approach.

The thunderbolt is the symbol of the Greek God Zeus, ruler of the Olympian Gods.  He wields enormous power and absolute authority.  This represents the Executive approach to teaching.

The teacher as Artist orchestrates both approaches.

According to my analysis I am an artist. A little bit of the Facilitator and a little bit of the Executive.  
Whew!  I was hoping for that one.

I wonder if a quiz like this will show up on Facebook one of these days.

The Thank You and Feed Me signs are taken from the children's book The Hungry Thing (top picture) by Jan Slepian and Ann Seidler.  This is a wonderful book to share with young children who are developing phonemic awareness. For more on this read the Yopp & Yopp article.