Week 1: Respect

So, welcome to my Ed Psych blog. We have assigned topics every week, and this week's is respect, in case you hadn't guessed by the title. On our little dispositions sheet, there's a quote by Ralph Waldo Emerson. He said, "The secret of education lies in respecting the student."

One of my favorite teachers in high school was the orchestra teacher, Dr. Chiarello. I suppose that's not too surprising, seeing as I'm currently on the track to becoming an orchestra teacher myself, and even if I wasn't, I would still be heavily involved in orchestra, but still. He knew, sometimes too well, how to have fun in class, but he was nearly always able to pull us all back into the music when it was time to get back down to business. My sophomore year, I realized that the next Spanish class (Spanish IV) was only offered during the time that our best orchestra practiced. It severely stressed me out. Orchestra and Spanish had always been my two favorite classes (now look where I am; a music ed and Spanish double major!). The thought that I might not be able to take one of them was horrible. I talked to Dr. Chiarello about it, nearly in tears from frustration. It would have been easy for him to just tell me to take orchestra - I was the orchestra's best violist after a kid a year older than me switched to violin for school. But instead, he acknowledged that orchestra and Spanish were both really important to me. He suggested I take the Spanish class, then aide in the freshman orchestra. I wasn't sure how well it would work out, but it seemed like the best option.

That turned out being a wonderful decision. Of course there were days that I was bored stiff, but many days I would go run errands for him, or I'd take an individual or small group out in the hallway to work on their music. I got to be really close to that class; some remain some of my closest friends today. That small group experience is really what made both Dr. Chiarello and me start thinking about music ed. During my senior year, while I was student mentoring at a middle orchestra, Dr. Chiarello told me I should really think about becoming an orchestra teacher. He had seen how I was with the freshman, and heard me telling stories about my seventh graders (not the Edison seventh graders - MY seventh graders). The idea had sort of been floating around in my mind, but it never really settled until he mentioned that idea to me. If he hadn't let me make my own decision and respected my priorities back sophomore year, I probably wouldn't be at Luther as a music ed major.

While overall my high school experiences were good, and filled with good teachers, I did have one teacher who caused my mother and one of my friends' mothers to label him a "brick wall." My sophomore year (huh, a lot seemed to happen that year...), I took Accelerated Chemistry. I've never been that big of a science buff, but I've always enjoyed the classes, so I wasn't really looking forward to the class or dreading it. A few people I knew were in it too, so I didn't figure it could be that bad. And overall it wasn't, at least for most of first semester. Sure, the teacher was boring, and said "ok?" at the end of nearly every sentence, and I wasn't the best at it, but I had a low A going, and was satisfied. Then came a test at the end of first semester. I never had big time issues with tests before, but this one was totally different. I usually glance at the clock every now and then just to see how I'm doing, and this one was not good. About ten minutes from the end of class, I just started rushing through, trying to at least get an answer down for everything. By the time we had to pack up, I at least had something for most of the questions, but there were two or three on the back I didn't get to, and the bottom half of the front that I had rushed through.

I got it back, and got an 84%, or maybe it was an 86%. Regardless, it was one of the lowest test scores I had ever received at that point. I wasn't very happy with it since I hadn't finished the test and most of the answers on the front had points off because I forgot labels and such in my rush to finish, but I was resigned to it. But then I heard that other people had gotten extra time because they hadn't finished half the test. Yet even though I definitely had some questions left blank, I wasn't offered extra time. I told my parents about it, and my mom actually went in to talk to the teacher for the first time ever. Needless to say, as I mentioned earlier, he was a brick wall. He didn't even act like he was comprehending what we were saying. My mom does NOT like being ignored, so she arranged a meeting with the vice-principal. By that point I didn't really want to go talk to more people, but she didn't want blatant inequality to slide. It turned out that nothing really got done for me, but at least my mom went to talk to someone.

Respect requires acknowledging that even though someone might be younger or less experienced, they still have thoughts and emotions and can contribute valuable things. Many good teachers talk about how they learn as much from the students as the students do from them. If they respect the students, the students will respect them back. My experience has been that when respect is mutual, it's a lot more genuine. I respected, and still respect, Dr. Chiarello a lot more than I respect Mr. Bechard, simply because I felt like Dr. Chiarello respected me and tried to do his best to help me to do my best. Obviously teacher-student respect is different than respect between equals, simply because the teacher does have to have authority. Even when I was working with the freshman and had some degree of authority, I was still definitely a student.

Well, I think that's enough for this week. I may have gone a bit overboard, but it's amazing how easy it is to write about something you care about, as opposed to an analysis or response to something. Too bad that research paper last year didn't flow as easily...