What is a teacher's main role on the students: is it motivation and inspiration, or passing on knowledge.
The answer of this question is not as simple as that of saying teachers' role defınitely is the one in the question. The given each role actually is a part of teaching, but a wise combination of them is required. However, teachers usually prefer the passing on knowledge due to many reasons such as pressure of the parents concerning the ranking of their children in national exams. I will introduce the necessity of the given each role, and my opinion about how the balance should be.
On the one hand, we cannot ignore the role of teacher as a source of knowledge, since although there are many other valuable knowledge sources e.g., books, computer based materials, and the Internet, non of them can adapt itself according to different individuals' learning abilities. To give an example, even though there are plenty of well-prepared and cheap Internet or computer-based English courses, many of the students seek tutors --by the way nowadays Skype-based private courses become more popular -- as they think their requirement to acquire the knowledge or ability are different than the common.
On the other hand, if the teachers restrict themselves to transmission of the facts instead of showing students how they learn what they need, they leave the students depended someone to learn everything during their lifetime. Teachers should instruct students how they can obtain a knowledge they need, be someone the students draw inspiration for the future , and then motivate them to run to their targets requiring many obstacles. Unfortunately, in my life there is any example teacher in this model: could be a few reason of this. The first one: in turkey, the country I grew up, the national exams after every level of education to chose the next school causes stress both teachers and students to fulfill such a model. The second one: teachers are educated how they efficiently can pass on knowledge to students rather than how they guide student to build their own life.
The answering of how a teacher can combine these attributes is not trivial job, since it doesn't depend on teachers themselves but the whole education system. Especially, as long as the exam based educational system is applicable, it is hard to convince the parents to not put pressure on teachers in order to passing on more knowledge intended for the exams. In addition, the teacher educational system should change with this new combination model, which give teachers a role, guiding and helping the student to access the knowledge and motivating for the future.
On the one hand, we cannot ignore the role of teacher as a source of knowledge, since although there are many other valuable knowledge sources e.g., books, computer based materials, and the Internet, non of them can adapt itself according to different individuals' learning abilities. To give an example, even though there are plenty of well-prepared and cheap Internet or computer-based English courses, many of the students seek tutors --by the way nowadays Skype-based private courses become more popular -- as they think their requirement to acquire the knowledge or ability are different than the common.
On the other hand, if the teachers restrict themselves to transmission of the facts instead of showing students how they learn what they need, they leave the students depended someone to learn everything during their lifetime. Teachers should instruct students how they can obtain a knowledge they need, be someone the students draw inspiration for the future , and then motivate them to run to their targets requiring many obstacles. Unfortunately, in my life there is any example teacher in this model: could be a few reason of this. The first one: in turkey, the country I grew up, the national exams after every level of education to chose the next school causes stress both teachers and students to fulfill such a model. The second one: teachers are educated how they efficiently can pass on knowledge to students rather than how they guide student to build their own life.
The answering of how a teacher can combine these attributes is not trivial job, since it doesn't depend on teachers themselves but the whole education system. Especially, as long as the exam based educational system is applicable, it is hard to convince the parents to not put pressure on teachers in order to passing on more knowledge intended for the exams. In addition, the teacher educational system should change with this new combination model, which give teachers a role, guiding and helping the student to access the knowledge and motivating for the future.
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