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). g 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. g Thank you for sharing.
g 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.
g g g g 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. g
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.
g g g g 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
