Thoughts on Teaching & Education
by
Janis Gabay
1990 National Teacher of the Year
On her approach and style of teaching:
"Perhaps my greatest contribution to education is being able to motivate students to demonstrate a level of performance that matches all their potential within. I see my primary task as bringing out abilities and talents that students may not even know they have.
"To accept simple competence defeats the purposes of education--to understand one's
world by using one's mind and to understand one's self by knowing one's heart. I strive to connect with every child in my class, to make all of them aware that they are important and that I care about them and their achievements.
"In the precious time I spend with my students, I work to shape their young lives so one day they, too, will make positive, sustaining contributions of their own."
On her philosophy of teaching:
"A basic tenet of my philosophy of teaching is that I am teaching to the whole child, not simply to that part of him or her that needs language arts skills.
"In the interaction with their pupils, teachers not only teach their subject matter, they also teach who they are as people. Thus, teaching is an extension of my personal, intellectual and spiritual values; what I strive to achieve in the quality of my daily life, I also work to offer my students in their daily learning experiences with me. My goal, then, is to provide the context for students to become empowered, to enable them to know how positively to affect the quality of their days.
"By way of writing and literature, I claim as my province the entire range of human experience. What a challenge this is! I offer my students as many ideas as I can by showing them, through literature, that there is nothing that has not already been felt, experienced, or thought, but much to be discovered in a new way.
"I vary types of learning situations, offering students many chances to excel, building on their initial academic and personal strengths. My students are encouraged to know their limitations but to discover how to turn them into advantages."
On the perception of teaching as a profession:
"To the public criticism that teaching as a career is not given due status, the proposal for a National Board for Professional Teaching Standards, as conceived by the Carnegie Forum on Education, is one kind of answer, as are lead teacher or mentor teacher programs.
"To the view that schools are outdated: technology is reshaping how we teach blunting such criticism.
"To the despair over low compensation: efforts are now in place to make teachers' salaries competitive with other professions.
"To the criticism that teachers are isolated: I work to show that teachers can be autonomous yet involved--collaborating with peers, assuming leadership roles, working on curriculum, being involved in the community.
"With the burgeoning ethnic diversity our nation enjoys, teaching is a career that only can be strengthened by the addition of educators of diverse cultures and heritages, of rich and varied backgrounds."
On educational reform, national trends, and priorities:
"The rhetoric of change is plentiful, but unless it translates into the reality of sound academic classroom interaction between teacher and student, it remains all abstraction.
"The school must once again be a central focus in each neighborhood, linking teachers, parents, and community to make a difference in the lives of our nation's children, our nations's future contributing citizens.
"Equity and excellence in education are not mutually exclusive if all sectors of a community work together with the schools.
"Schools and communities can forge a focused alliance to restructure education to meet the needs of children into the 21st century--organizing resources, incentives, and recognition to enhance school-based authority and retain good teachers in the classroom."
