Thank you for sharing both your positive and negative learning experiences!
Like you, I spent nine years on active duty and my transition to the civilian
sector was challenging. I was not a “fobbit” during my time overseas and I
know those experiences have affected who I am. I am grateful for you to have
found such a wonderful leader, mentor, and teacher as I am positive the
experience has been mutually beneficial for him as well.
Regarding the example of your poor experience, I find it amazing that you were
able to identify the exercise in patience as being a potentially positive outcome
of what sounds like a dreadful experience. This teacher does not sound like
they embraced any of the seven principles of effective teaching but at the
minimum they did not encourage contact, cooperation, or active learning
(Bernstein et al., 2020). e Your strength to persevere instead of dropping the
class is inspiring! It would have been interesting to read their teaching
philosophy and see if it would have included any of the common themes noted
from highly effective teachers such as: engaging students in learning,
maintaining student interest, getting to know students, assessing student’s
knowledge, setting high expectations, and participating in professional
development (Carraway & Burris, 2017). Regardless, they did not seem to be
practicing the key elements of being an effective teacher.
It is awesome to read about the good experience you had with your instructor
from the police academy. I have not been in the military and cannot pretend to
understand how hard it must have been for you to adjust to a civilian lifestyle
after 5 years of active service. The mental health impact of being in the
military is pretty well researched now, with PTSD being considered a public
health issue. (Chargualaf & Elliott, 2019) I believe having people, like your
mentor, to help our military personnel adjust and work through the changes
they experience after service, is essential to helping combat some of the
mental health challenges that are arising.
I also hate to hear about your experience with your professor in your master's
program. It can be quite frustrating when teaching seems to be bias or one
sided. I think you did learn from that experience though! You mentioned that
the course changed for you, and you focused on being patient. Sometimes that
is what God is calling us to do in different moments. I truly believe that God
places us in situations for a reason. You can take what you learned from both
the good and bad experience and apply it to the kind of teacher you would like
to be. Thank you for sharing. e I like how you discussed your mentor in police
training as the teacher role for the post; I did not even consider that when
writing mine. For my reply, I wanted to discuss the strengths of your thread
regarding your "poor teacher experience". I have had similar experiences with
college instructors that teach to their own biased agendas. Perhaps the most
frustrating part of that experience for you was the teacher' liberal agenda. I,
too, can relate to the frustration of liberal agendas being accepted as "truth".
One of the reasons I had to unsubscribe from important newsletters from the
state teachers union I was a part of as a teacher, which included their roles in
lobbying for teacher rights with the state (our state has only one department of
education which hires and is in charge of all public school teacher positions in
the entire state, as opposed to each local district having their own powers and
protocols), was the advocacy for liberal agendas they pushed. I found it sad
and sickening what our union was "fighting" for. In fact, it is very scary that the
majority of the public education system across the nation right now is
"accepting" as truth about the very essence of all people (i.e., God has created
only two sexes for humans). With this in mind, I respect your resiliency to
persevere in your course aligned to liberal ideas.
e e e e e I also wanted to point out the fact that teachers should not be
manipulating content to fit their own opinions. This quality, according to
Bernstein et al. (2020) refers to one's knowledge about subject matter. e
Knowledge comes from sources that are peer-reviewed, empirical, testable, etc.
In this way, one should not be able to distort information. It is very tricky this
day and age when a community of people just decide to come together and
"agree" on something existing based off of feelings, and the misuse and
misunderstanding of mental illness, propagating it and making it pandemic so
that dysphoria and delusion become the subjective, socially-constructed reality,
which is also then abused and manipulated as peer pressure across society.
e e e e e When considering other characteristics Bernstein et al. (2020)
recommend for effective teachers, your teacher lacked the qualities to strive to
be a better teacher, being respectful, and encouraging critical thinking. Perhaps
your teacher did not understand that critical thinking can be done in any
subject resulting in any number of conclusions, as long as the conclusions are
rooted in coherent and proper logic and reasoning. If you were able to defend
your assertions with fact and logic, your teacher, as all teachers, should respect
that and find that as the ideal behavior for students, whether or not your
opinion matches his or hers. This ability to recognize the behavior and process
of argumentation, problem solving, and logic for what they are, as well as to
respect, yet not agree with someone's opinions, is one of the hallmarks of
education.
References:
Chargualaf, K., & Elliott, B. (2019). Psychological effects of military service:
Applying research to civilian & Academic environments. OJIN: The Online Journal
of Issues in Nursing, 24(3). https://doi.org/10.3912/ojin.vol24no03man02
