Impressions of the Teaching Profession
The profession of a teacher and a teacher's role in an educational system is assuming new dimensions as the children's learning and family environment is getting more complex day by day. A few years ago, teaching was primarily concerned with imparting academic knowledge and this was often done with little consideration to the learning capability of the student, leading to high dropout rates and student alienation in schools and families, even resulting in the development of anti-social behaviour in children. Aggression, bullying and the increasing school violence are all considered as the result of such inappropriate teaching methodologies. If the student has learning disabilities, the consequence is even worse. Hence, the educational system presently lays much emphasis on the student's general developmental issues, (Smith, Cowie and Blades 1998), requiring the teacher to understand the learning capability of students and formulate such learning aids and teaching methodologies that would be congenial to the student. Teachers are also increasingly being prepared by the school administration to aid them to develop pro-social behaviour in students, making them more complete and valuable to the school and society as a whole.
The teaching profession is emerging as a highly challenging one, as the teachers today are faced with the need to understanding each of their students' general development and the way it would impact the school achievement, and to design teaching aids and methodologies that would address the individual student's learning needs and behaviour management. While understanding a student's general development, the main factors that are considered include the contributions of student's family and community environment, the developmental significance of friendships and the general development of such pro-social behaviors as empathy, kindness etc. The increasing acknowledgement of parent participation in the general development of the children and their achievement in school is evidenced from the fact that it has been established as a National Education Goal in the U.S. In 1994, however the 'teacher preparation in family involvement lags far behind school efforts to promote family involvement,' according to the Harvard Family Research Project, "New Skills for New Schools: Preparing Teachers in Family Involvement" released in 1997.
The report suggests various family involvement activities that could be carried out in schools to help teacher gain adequate knowledge of the students developmental issues and also focuses on the knowledge, skills and attitudes the teachers need in order to work with parents in an effective and fruitful manner. Teachers today are being more and more exposed to family involvement activities to improve the general family knowledge including the family beliefs; childrearing practices etc. And also to increased home school communication. More recently teachers are being encouraged by school administration to expose themselves to community experiences in the student community and also to 'cultural immersion' so as to learn about children coming from varied ethnic backgrounds. Teachers also need to aid themselves with inter-professional education and collaboration with other human service professionals so as to comprehend and provide for children's developmental, educational and learning needs.
The impact and importance of the role of friends in children's and adolescents' psychological development and social growth is vastly accepted. In order to understand the child's development the positive as well as the negative effects of friendship is to be considered with respect to children's development in the different aspects and areas of achievement. Hartup examines the developmental significance of friendships, while trying to understand children's development issues. Though the issue of "being liked" and "being disliked" is often associated to the social competence of children, the teacher need to consider the developmental significance of friendship by observing the nature of company that a child keeps, whether he enjoys the friendship, the personality of the friends that he keeps and the quality of friendship. Children are normally distinguished from one another and classified in psychological diagnosis based on whether they have friends or not.
Research has shown that children gain...
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