Educational Quote Response

“We as educators need to reconsider our roles in students’ lives, to think of ourselves as connectors first and content experts second.” – Will Richardson. Out of the lost of quotes this is the quote really spoke to me and caught my attention. I never really thought of education in this perspective but when I unpacked the quote, it really got me thinking not only about education system, but how I want to teach in a classroom and how this lines up with my philosophy. 

First I am gonna unpack this quote the first part of the quote is, “We as educators need to reconsider our role in students’ lives…”, which I think is very important to have success in a classroom, the teachers who I did not like in my educational experiences are the teachers who don’t care about students, they don’t make an effort to establish a relationship with a student or try to connect with a student on another level besides education. I think as an educator and teacher it is very important to be able to connect and build relationships with students, because then you are not just someone telling a student information, you are guiding them through the information. I think back to all the best teachers I had in my schooling experience they reached out to us as students and really got to know us, and this is very useful because then you know what type of student and learners you would have in your classroom, and that will help you be able to reach out to your students and help them in any way possible. Which brings me back to the point of changing the role we play in students lives.

Now what makes this quote possible in education is we as teachers have the freedoms and the creative minds to relay information in anyway we see fit, this will help us connect the students to information instead of content experts. Being “content experts” in our so called major or minor, we need to know the content, but it is up to us on whether or not we are going to put in the effort to make sure we are not just shoving information down our students throats because we are the so called “experts”, when in fact we should be connecting them to information and guiding them to what suits there needs and that again is where we need to reconsider our roles in students lives.

What makes this I wouldn’t say impossible but I would rather say diffiuclt in education is the fact that some students are students may not want to explain why they might be struggling or talk about how they learn and what they want out of their educational experience, and some students are simply not gonna try, and there is not a whole lot we can do about that. Kids are stubborn the only thing we can do is be there for them when they are ready to share, however we still have to try our best to get through to those students, without putting the other students behind. I think that is where in the quote that we have to be the connectors really comes to light, we as teachers are their to connect the information with our students and to connect with our students.

I would say this quote speaks a lot to teachers are very involved in their schools, I don’t want to be known as a know it all in my subject area, I don’t want to come off as arrogant and teachers know everything, because teachers don’t know everything, teacher learn just like students learn and I personally think that it is important for students to know that, that teachers make mistakes, and we are not higher than they are, however we still are responsible for their learning and have to realize that students look up to us as educators and authority figures. I think students wold appreciate this quote because it would make them feel like they are being heard which they are. It would also make the student feel like they aren’t just having information shoved int heir face, by connecting and guiding the students to the information it will have a more positive affect on the students wants and needs to learn, not only does it give the teacher more freedom to do what they want with the information but it also gives the student more freedom to learn.

This quote connects with my philosophy as we as teachers need to connect with our students and try our absolute best to help every student be successful, now I know that it can’t happen for every single student but as long as we try our absolute best I think it is possible. I think the best way to be able to reach every student comes form this quote, where we have to rethink our roles and be connectors of information instead of experts.