25 Biggest Mistakes Teachers Make and How to Avoid Them by Carolyn Orange Page A
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Authors: Carolyn Orange
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entertaining a great deal of displaced anger and was directing it toward the younger sister. Some teachers project undesirable qualities of former students onto their brothers and sisters. There are some teachers that expect their current students to follow in their brother or sister’s footsteps. When they fail to live up to those expectations, these teachers make them feel inferior with comments like “You’re nothing like your sister; she was a good student.” Some teachers give siblings less credit for assignments and assume they copied the work of their sister or brother.
Discerning teachers know that students are individuals and not extensions of their brothers or sisters. Each student should be allowed to fail or succeed on his or her own merit. Good teachers wipe the slate clean for everyone that leaves. This gives all incoming students a fresh start. If teachers have a bad experience with former students, they should address the problems when they occur or let them go away with the students that caused them. The sins of a big sister should never be visited upon her sibling.
Mistake
10
Racial and Cultural
Discrimination
SCENARIO 10.1
Cross-Cultural Confusion
My worst experience was when I was in first grade. My teacher was a racist and I felt she really had it in for us (another Hispanic little boy and me). She made me stay after school every day. I hated going to school. She would yell at me in front of the whole class because I couldn’t understand what she was instructing me to do much less read in a language that was so foreign to me. The worst was that when she would yell at me, everyone laughed at me. It still hurts to remember.
Culture may be described as socially transmitted behavioral patterns, knowledge, values, beliefs, attitudes, interactions with others, arts, products, and thoughts. Is there any doubt that different sociocultural groups will understand and perceive the world in different ways? I think not. Members of a culture may effectively transmit implicit information or information that is understood although it is not expressed directly to another member of that culture. However, when the same implicit information is communicated across cultures, there may be some miscommunication or confusion (Delpit, 1988). The children in this scenario seem to be experiencing this type of confusion. They were having difficulty understanding what the teacher wanted them to do. Unfortunately, the teacher appeared oblivious to what was really happening in this exchange. Apparently, she thought that yelling and public ridicule would solve her communication problems. Her less-than-professional tactics,possibly conceived in prejudice, only served to damage the self-esteem of these language minority students and make them hate her and hate school.
Enlightened teachers are aware of the problems of cross-cultural communication. They are very explicit in their communication of directions, rules, answers to questions, and so on. They know that children from different cultures may misinterpret their directions or instructions. Heath (1983) concedes that minority students may misinterpret veiled teacher commands. The students may take such commands literally because they do not understand the implicit meaning. Professional teachers want to be aware of their biases or discriminatory behavior. They want to expose them to the light of truth. They know the potential psychosocial costs to their students and demand the eradication of any biases.
SCENARIO 10.2
Cinderella in the Classroom
My worst experience in elementary school was in the first grade. The first day of class, our teacher told us that girls should not wear shorts to class because it would distract the boys. The following week, my mom decided to send me in shorts; even though I begged her not to put shorts on me, she insisted. I was terrified of what might happen to me that day. When I arrived to class, my first-grade teacher embarrassed me in front of
Discerning teachers know that students are individuals and not extensions of their brothers or sisters. Each student should be allowed to fail or succeed on his or her own merit. Good teachers wipe the slate clean for everyone that leaves. This gives all incoming students a fresh start. If teachers have a bad experience with former students, they should address the problems when they occur or let them go away with the students that caused them. The sins of a big sister should never be visited upon her sibling.
Mistake
10
Racial and Cultural
Discrimination
SCENARIO 10.1
Cross-Cultural Confusion
My worst experience was when I was in first grade. My teacher was a racist and I felt she really had it in for us (another Hispanic little boy and me). She made me stay after school every day. I hated going to school. She would yell at me in front of the whole class because I couldn’t understand what she was instructing me to do much less read in a language that was so foreign to me. The worst was that when she would yell at me, everyone laughed at me. It still hurts to remember.
Culture may be described as socially transmitted behavioral patterns, knowledge, values, beliefs, attitudes, interactions with others, arts, products, and thoughts. Is there any doubt that different sociocultural groups will understand and perceive the world in different ways? I think not. Members of a culture may effectively transmit implicit information or information that is understood although it is not expressed directly to another member of that culture. However, when the same implicit information is communicated across cultures, there may be some miscommunication or confusion (Delpit, 1988). The children in this scenario seem to be experiencing this type of confusion. They were having difficulty understanding what the teacher wanted them to do. Unfortunately, the teacher appeared oblivious to what was really happening in this exchange. Apparently, she thought that yelling and public ridicule would solve her communication problems. Her less-than-professional tactics,possibly conceived in prejudice, only served to damage the self-esteem of these language minority students and make them hate her and hate school.
Enlightened teachers are aware of the problems of cross-cultural communication. They are very explicit in their communication of directions, rules, answers to questions, and so on. They know that children from different cultures may misinterpret their directions or instructions. Heath (1983) concedes that minority students may misinterpret veiled teacher commands. The students may take such commands literally because they do not understand the implicit meaning. Professional teachers want to be aware of their biases or discriminatory behavior. They want to expose them to the light of truth. They know the potential psychosocial costs to their students and demand the eradication of any biases.
SCENARIO 10.2
Cinderella in the Classroom
My worst experience in elementary school was in the first grade. The first day of class, our teacher told us that girls should not wear shorts to class because it would distract the boys. The following week, my mom decided to send me in shorts; even though I begged her not to put shorts on me, she insisted. I was terrified of what might happen to me that day. When I arrived to class, my first-grade teacher embarrassed me in front of
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