Economic Freedom

I believe that individual freedom in economic decision making is a necessary rampart against the tyranny of the state of economic power of priviliged elites.

If women are not financially independent, they cannot feel secure. Even in the sweetest of marriages, a woman needs that economic freedom and power. 

Teachers in developing countries have most of the time annually renewable contracts. In order to ensure a clean, healthy physical environment in school buildings, teachers need to have a contract that make them feel secure. 

Teachers do not get the respect, the freedom, the compensation, or the rewards that many of them deserve. The way that teacher salaries are set in is nonsensical. Effectiveness in the classroom does not lead to higher salaries. A dynamic teacher and a weak teacher have the same salary! A teacher's experience must push him/her higher up the scale. Each September, teachers on the main pay scale must move to the next point on the scale.

A proper teacher contract should take into consideration health insurance, life insurance, working days, vacation and sick days, a step program, and cost of living increase. Unused sick days must be exchange for a bonus.

 

A teacher contract must also stress professional growth and it must cover the time frame of one school year.

Since we do not have a tax-free salary, then the school must pay the teacher for one school year. 

Teachers play an important role in shaping the minds of our youth, by engaging, inspiring and challenging them. People who choose to teach as a career do it because they love to teach. 


Therefore, teachers deserve your support and your gratitude.

Multiple Intelligences and Inclusion

Based on my research and experience, teachers need to provide learning opportunities that appeal to all learning styles and multiple intelligences. 

Also we need to encourage the students to identify similarities and differences and to generate and test hypotheses. For example, I use metaphors and analogies for making comparisons. 

I also encourage the students to analyze the lesson and to put it in their own words. (I use this method in geography/history) 

Summarizing requires students to substitute and remove nonessential information while learning to keep the main ideas and to recognize salient information. 

In addition, research has shown that note taking is beneficial to the students. Note taking is closely related to summarizing. It requires students to translate the teacher’s information into their own abbreviated form. Summarizing and note taking are great ways of synthesizing information. 

The teacher needs to set objectives and provide feedback. At the end of the day, the teacher needs to tell the students how they are progressing. 

They need to be aware of the mistakes they make and the teacher need to help them to correct these mistakes. They should not be afraid of making mistakes. Therefore, they need to practice a lot before a test and they should have more than one opportunity to complete a learning task. 

In the classroom, there is a merit sheet paper which shows how many merits (tally charts) each student is getting during the week. They can get merits for different reasons: helping, sharing, kindness, good work, homework… At the end of the week, the student with the most merits will win a merit badge during the assembly time which takes place every Friday. Then, we put a new merit sheet paper on the board every Monday. 

There is one practice that I have tried to enhance effective instruction in the classroom setting. A few minutes before the end of a lesson, I ask students to take a sheet of paper and to write 2 things they understand well about today’s lesson. Then, I ask them to write one thing they did not understand about the lesson or a question they would like me to answer. I tell them that they cannot leave the classroom unless they give me this sheet of paper. I ask them not to sign their names and that spelling is not important. Then, I use the information from the sheet of papers for the next day’s lesson. 

The goal of inclusion is for special need students to attend a general classroom practices and activities. This approach has many advantages. It gives students with special needs the opportunity to learn with their non-handicapped peers. All the students benefit from equal educational opportunities.

 The students without disabilities will learn about differences between people and they will learn to be tolerant. The teachers will have to adapt and learn new techniques in order to help these special need students. 

In the other hand, the special need students might not get the specialized attention and care in a classroom of 30 non-handicapped children. The teacher will not be able to give a special education, while also giving a regular course to the other students. Therefore, the teacher will need an assistant in the classroom.

Effective Teachers

Effective teachers choose instructional strategies that promote effective learning and cognitive processing. 

First of all, teachers should create a setting conducive to learning. They must consistently engage the students in productive learning activities. Secondly, they should follow these eight strategies in order to have a well-managed classroom: (1) teachers should find the best physical arrangement which will help students to focus on their academic tasks; (2) teachers should have good working relationships with students; (3) teachers should intrinsically motivate their students to learn; (4) they should set reasonable limits for behavior; (5) they should plan activities that encourage on-task behavior; (6) They should continually monitor what students are doing in the classroom; (7) they should modify instructional strategies when necessary; (8) they should take individual and developmental differences into account.

In addition, arranging the classroom into traditional rows is often more effective in keeping the students on task during individual assignments. Then, on the first rows, the teacher can keep the misbehaving or uninvolved students close at hand. Also, by placing her desk at the back, the teacher would be able to see all of her/ his students all the time. 

Furthermore, teachers must maintain positive and supportive relationships with their students. They should communicate caring and respect for students: (1) by being well prepared for class; (2) providing the right support; (3) include students in decision making; (4) accept students’ mistakes without making them feel like a failure. 

Moreover, teachers should create a classroom community where all the students will feel that they belong to. They should create a sense of shared goals, interpersonal respect, and mutual support.

Equally important, teachers must always keep the students engaged in productive activities. Otherwise, if students have a lot of free time in the classroom, they will misbehave. Effective teachers should give clear directions by always monitoring what students are doing. 

Besides teachers should coordinate their efforts and learn to collaborate with other teachers, librarians, counselors in order to create an overall sense of school community. 

On the whole, teachers must have a classroom where students feel physically and psychology safe and secure in order to have students who want to learn and who are motivated.