The more I read this blog the more frustrated I get.
How in the world, are we suppose to all stay in one area?
Disadvantaged by not living where the students live?...Well Dr. S. I guess you should resign your position at the University of Rio Grande, because you don't live here. You're at a disadvantage.
Go back to where you came from!
I think what many of you have failed to realize is that while you may want to stay here, you may not have that as your number one option. I think we all would like to teach at our old stomping grounds to a certain degree but what guarantee do you have that positions are even going to be available when you graduate?
Are you seriously going to sit and wait for a job? How long?
Did anyone seriously get into this because they aspired to be a substitute teacher?
And if you do wait it out, who are you really helping?
I think many of you have already closed yourselves off both from an educational stand point as well as a professional stand point by locking in on one area, one geographic region, one culture, one way of life. You have already eliminated so many opportunities that your education will provide you. Which if you think about it isn't really a behavior trait or philosophy becoming of someone who should even be in this profession.
We are at a disadvantage only if we are unable to learn from our students just as much if not more than they do or will from us. And I didn't pull that from some book that's just common sense. It has nothing to do with geography or culture or living in the suburbs compared to the country, the ghetto or the trailer park. It's not about where you live it's can you adapt and evolve. Can you take your experience combine it with theirs' and find a common ground? A compromise if you will.
To borrow from a Bruce Lee philosophy, as educators I think we need to be like water. Able to fit into any container you pour us in. Be able to change forms if necessary. I think there are a lot of us that are ice. Big solid icebergs that don't wanna move unless some other force of nature makes us.
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I think each of us is a change agent. We have the capacity, potential to be the catalyst for each person we come in contact with in our lives. To think that we are at a disadvantage for not living where our students come from is to seriously limit what we can do with regard to bringing about change.
The change I would expect a teacher to be is that of a catalyst. For it is that change that is developmentally appropriate for each person. That is where our expertise is and what we have prepared ourselves for through our studies at university.
Your questions are insightful. I assume you are not asking them of the readers of this blog but are the questions that you are asking yourself in a metacognitive fashion.
The final comments about members of our community being blocks of ice may be a correct impression and like all beautiful ice sculptures we are a reflection of our artist/teacher, the experiences we have had that brought us here and of the ions and elements that we are composed of from our creators. Fortunate for all elements of our world is that we are actively in a 'act, react, and a re-react' sequence of events as we evolve through our existence.
We each pursue the future based on the elements that we need, that we poses and how we define our selves.
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