“The Rise of the
Helicopter Teacher”
“A
week before the first paper was due, a young woman in my class raised her hand
and asked where the rubric was.”
“Shamefaced
and stuttering, I had to admit that I had no idea what a rubric was. She
helpfully explained that this was a set of guidelines explaining what I
expected them to write, how I expected them to write it, and how each aspect of
the paper would be evaluated. A set of boxes that students could check off to
guarantee that they had met my expectations. For all intents and purposes, in
other words, an outline for the paper.”
“Oh,
I replied. No, I continued, there would be no rubric. And as I saw the crestfallen
faces in front of me I realized what these students expected me to be: a
helicopter teacher.”
“We
have all seen (and made fun of) helicopter parents. They hover. They are
endlessly accommodating. They put up with rude, spoiled behavior from their
children without offering much by way of discipline or punishment.”
“Over
the last generation or so, teaching has come to resemble parenting in several
ways, swayed by the currents of hyper-parenting that come from the larger
culture and responding to the dictates that come down to us from higher up our
institutional food chains.”
Read
the whole thing here: http://chronicle.com/blogs/conversation/2014/08/05/the-rise-of-the-helicopter-teacher/?cid=cr&utm_source=cr&utm_medium=en
What
are your thoughts on this subject?
Dr Flavius A B Akerele III
The ETeam
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