Perhaps our greatest gift is the ability to shift from taking care of the group to taking care of the individual in the group when it is needed.

(taking care = addressing the needs) (a nod to Nell Noddings’ ethic of care )

Unrelenting Expectation. That needs to be written as a title, a proper noun.
Hot.

You ask hard questions…

I have a few gifts. As a special education teacher I think that the answer to the question of which one is the greatest varies from child to child. Their needs are individual.

But I spend a lot of time in a general education environment coteaching and monitoring kids that are learning in inclusions. I think that unrelenting expectation is an important personal, human attribute that I have. We can make technology interactive. We can make it respond to what students do on a keyboard. But we can’t make it communicate expectation to a child that isn’t particular motivated for some reason.

Greg

(Anyone who quotes Sesame Street has to be doing something good … I’ll be back )

“Faith” is far too broad a term. In this age that word could mean any number of different things. If I’d said “science” (for I do teach Science) that too would be far too broad in its compass to have any real meaning. That’s why I prefer to say “the teacher must have faith that the student will succeed and must frequently verify this to the student.” Not just faith.

Ka kite

Ken Allans last blog post at http://newmiddle-earth.blogspot.com..What on earth has happened to Google Reader?

Firstly – thank you for stopping by my blog! Maybe I’ll be able to keep things interesting enough for you to take a peek regularly… I plan on linking you, and keeping up with your musings.

Secondly, I was hoping you would indulge a response to your question. I just finished a two year tour as a quasi-educator at Syracuse University. I say quasi because pre-hospital emergency care doesn’t quite have all of the fancy certificates and degrees sorted out that other branches of education do – but as far as the State of New York and the American Heart Association are concerned, I get to teach others how to save a life.

When it came to my students, I -always- did my best to bring the gift of attention. My “kids” were college-age… most of them already had a full-day of classes, other engagements, and personal affairs to contend with by the time they got to me. At that age, sometimes all you can hope to do is listen – and you’d be surprised how far it gets you.

So would you say the #1 gift you bring to the classroom is faith?

@Scott – “What human gift do we bring to the classroom? Ultimately our students probably decide that, with each having their own answer…”

I like that…yet at the same time it is a great way to avoid focusing on having to choose just one, eh?

What human gift do we bring to the classroom? Ultimately our students probably decide that, with each having their own answer…

Scott McLeods last blog post at http://www.dangerouslyirrelevant.org..Stone Age Administrator award?