In my preceding years of teaching, in addition to working as a public Middle School teacher, I got the chance to run my own training school in my home local city. Without the conventional public school system's confines, I got the opportunity to design my own school curriculum based on my students' academic abilities and learning interests. It was not that easy, or even risky, to challenge the traditional ways of formal instruction to create a brand new one unfamiliar to each student and parent. However, it is surprising that, in turn, the appropriate curriculum had a significantly positive impact on changing students' attitudes toward learning. Indeed, it fostered a vibrant atmosphere of learning, in which every student found their confidence and interest in knowledge by choosing what was genuinely consistent with their needs and by learning at their distinctly different pace. Based on this foundation of confidence, comfortableness, and interest, students were more likely to automatically involve themselves in learning activities as opposed to raising the possibility of misbehavior. Likewise, teachers could place emphasis on knowledge itself, which is supposed to have the magical influence on students to trigger their internal motives of learning rather than resorting to external incentives to confine students in a narrow sense of learning. Thus, all of those contributed to an auspicious circle of students' learning and educators' instructional practices. Consequently, I had a smooth running of my training school, for it had already earned an essentially good reputation. 

As Kohn further states on page 118, "If we are committed to moving beyond discipline, we need an engaging curriculum and a caring community." An engaging and innovative curriculum seems like one of the shortcuts in the pursuit of instruction's ultimate success. Therefore, from my point of view, it is vital and well worthy of attempting.

I think it’s interesting how often I’ve heard this from students themselves actually. Children are acutely aware of not being respected by adults, and many of them are not afraid to call that out when they see it. When we still had students in the physical building, my office was the ISS room and it was also where children ended up when they were sent out of class. I tried to use this space as a safe space for them to check in about what was going on, why they were sent out, etc. Frequently kids will tell me that the reason they were “disrespectful” to their teacher was because the teacher was disrespectful to them first. Many times, I accepted this explanation as probably being accurate: after all, respect is more than just telling someone “I respect you.” In some of these classrooms it was clear that the teachers genuinely did not have much time for the opinions and feelings of their students, and in one case I believe the teacher is actively afraid of children. This is a far cry from what Kohn describes as community. Looking back at these conversations I had, I have some regrets about my responses to this objection: specifically I feel like I carried water for these teachers and said something like, “I’m sure they respect you,” or “I’m sure they value having you in class.” Ultimately, I am not sure I really believed those responses and I think this is a great example of the way that adults in a school tend to take the side of other adults rather than believing the accounts of children. After all, the teacher can’t possibly value the student’s presence that much if they send them out of class every day. I think my tendency to respond this way was probably damaging and detrimental to any relationship I was able to build with those students, and detrimental to forming a real community in the school. 

 

This approach suggests that caring doesn’t depend only on the teachers’ characteristics but also how their environment for learning has been set up. This approach involves student participation in decision taking. Students need to feel themselves comfortable enough in order to increase the sense of community building. Furthermore, this approach suggests that, encouraging competition where one student can succeed only if another fails, doesn’t help building a sense a community. Same situation goes for praising students publicly. According to Khon, this only increases the feeling of being the best without actually caring for each other. However, I think competition is not actually a bad thing when it is applied correctly. As a matter of fact, it encourages healthy development and promotes our neo-humanistic vision. I think the key here is highlighting each student’s effort more than who got the first place.  

 

Geez I feel like I’ve been preaching this stuff in all my coaching sessions and planning to incorporate it in a lighter method when teaching in a high school scenario. To create an environment where a student literally transforms his/her mind when stepping into the classroom. He/she knows it is time for business, it’s time to work hard, it’s time to leave it all in the classroom. For them to realize they can be who they want to be at any given moment at any given time, let them understand what   sacrificing every minute is something they wish to learn, to also building chemistry with one another in their class, helping develop each other’s craft by motivating one another, to sentimentality showing their love and beauty for the knowledge they wish to acquire together because the environment is everything. This is why most of us are defined by our parents and how they raised us in their environment.

Pp. 111 “Children are more likely to be respectful when important adults in their lives respect them.”

I’ll be honest, I have a lot of attributes from my father because I respected him and I know with what I’ve acquired by being around him so much, is that he was always trying to create an imaginative structure where his students of the game could always thrive. I think his workaholicsm has also worn off on me because I just bust my ass in everything I do. I push as hard as I can, even if it's the smallest thing, I try to be as perfect as possible and with conviction! I know later down the line, I can’t always push kids out of their comfort zone like how I was pushed. I’ve come to learn over the years that some kids will do whatever it takes, others don’t want to work as hard as others which is ok. Everyone eventually finds their desires over the years. I know I did when I came across the film industry. I felt in the zone. I felt like 25 years I was shooting darts missing the target until finally I landed on a bullseye. Never have I ever worked so hard, tirelessly finding a way to show what I love on the big screen. I think what I’m trying to say is.. I want my passion, my hard work, my love I have for the film community to rub off on my students, so they can become compassionate human beings when finally hitting their bullseye.