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). f 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. f Thank you for sharing. f f 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.
f f f f f f 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. f 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.
f f f f f f 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
