The Origin of the Quote by George Bernard Shaw
There is a famous saying by George Bernard Shaw“He who can, does. He who cannot, teaches.” In the literal sense, this saying might seem to condemn the power and the position of teachers. Just by taking a look at this saying one might feel that this saying is mainly talking about the inability of teachers. This is also one of the common thoughts that might crop up in the minds of the students while they are facing any difficulties in their schools and colleges.
However in order to make conclusions or any judgments regarding this statement, one has to go to the core of this quotations. It is really very important to knowabout the origin and the story behind this quote. George Bernard Shaw writes this quote for talking about the revolutionaries and not the teachers. So, this is really essential to know and keep in mind that he did not really make this quote as a weapon against the teachers. He was mainly talking about the revolutionaries who often do not care about other people (Shaw, 2018).
This quotes taken from the work called man and Superman where he is talking about the mediocrity of the human race. He is talking about the few superheroes like figures that were often born in the society. Shaw was referring to some of the very limited and a handful of people who have the special qualities than the rest of the common masses (Bates, 2015). It is through this quote that George Bernard Shaw wanted to spread the message of cooperation and mutual understanding. He wanted to see more people who will be helping others to grow into a responsible, fit and independent individual. So, people must take this quote as a positive saying rather than taking it in a negative sense.
As per the opinion of Littlejohn & Milligan (2015), it is true that each and every student in their academic lives might get some teachers who are very rude or similar to athreat to them. It might be a common feature for those students to get angry with their teachers and support this statement in a negative way. At the same time, Fraser-Seeto et al. (2015), have argued that the profession and the role of teachers are of utmost importance for the purpose of shaping the young minds. It is for this reason that the Government is trying its level best to find out many rules, regulations and the Australian standards that will help the teachers to teach the students as per the modern needs and demands of the students and their parents (Whalley, 2017). As per the opinion of Gale (2016), in many of the counties around the world including Australia, the job of a teacher is not considered a good or respectable job. The pay is also not enough.
Many of the teachers in the UK and Australia have a tough time in suiting themselves with their career.This is because they feel that their non teaching friends might make fun of them due to their monotonous profession or their low salary package. However the teachers have to realize that they are doing a very noble job by shaping the future of students. The Australian Government has realized that they need to motivate the teachers and help them to make their work easier. It is for this reason that the government is starting many new schemes and plans like the NAPLAN, Australian teaching professional standards and others that will help the teachers to train themselves. This will, in turn, help them to be a good teacher who can help in shaping the future of the students. This is similar to the view of G.B Shaw. A positive interpretation of his code can be that the teachers, who have failed, suffered or faced some issues in their student lives have opted for being teachers so that they can prevent the upcoming children from facing the similar problems.NAPLAN is one of the very helpful tools that help to support the modern teaching system(Littlejohn & Milligan, 2015).
The Importance of Teachers and Standards in teaching profession
It is a process by which the teachers can act as the teachers and the doors at the same time. It opens a good platform for the students to take tests on literacy and numeracy subjects. The teachers make sure that they are helping the students to gain good proficiency in the other aspects like the reading, writing, numeracy and the language skills as well. Thus, the teachers want to teach all the necessary qualities to their students so that they can have a very good and bright future. They help in teaching English verbal and non-verbal skills which is one of the most important aspects of the modern day scenario. They give the students different texts which are written by many different authors. This helps the students, to gain an understanding of the topics from different perspectives so that they are able to apply it in the future.
There can also be a different interpretation of this quote. This is because people who become teachers are can also be doers(Stronge, 2018). They might take up theprofession of teaching only because they like teaching and they believe in developing the personalities of the future generations of their country.
The other initiative by the NAPLAN is improving the grammatical and language skills for the students (Rabinowitz, 2015). They want to support their students in developing a good grip over the punctuations, spellings and other grammatical areas. The students take many grammar based tests and their papers are also corrected by maintaining certain standards. There are separate standards and criteria for students belonging to different age groups.
This system helps the teachers to make sure that they are able to identify the mistakes being made by the students and can also support them to correct the same. For an instance, the criteria for the year 3 students are being able to identify errors in the one or two syllable words. The standards for the 7-year students are spotting errors in the less frequently used one syllable words, two-syllable words with irregular spellings and others, so, the minimum standards are different for different students. This helps in teaching the students in an organized and systematic manner.
The Australian Professional Standards for teachers are a very good initiative that helps the teachers to train themselves and also assess their own professional growth along with the students. Some of the standards that are followed by the teachers know their students well. In other words, teachers have to develop a proper connection with the students (Whalley, 2017). They need to learn the content properly and then find out many innovative ways for making the classroom sessions very interesting. So, it can be said that these teaching professionals are teachers and doers at the same time.The teachers will also have to conduct many feedback sessions so that they can keep a record of the progress of the students. The teaching professionals will also have to engage themselves with the parents or the guardians. This will ensure that they are being able to provide the necessary amount of support for the growth and development of their students.
Tools to Support Modern Teaching System
So it can be said that this proverb by GB Shaw might be used by, any people in a negative way, In particular people who belong from a non-teaching background, might use this proverb to criticize or demean the teachers. However, this is really very insulting to the teachers. There are always two sides’ of the same coin. There will always be some or the other kinds of exceptions in each and every profession. Some teachers can be really lazy but there are also some who are extremely hard working. NAPLAN shows that the teachers can be very diligent, punctual and hardworking professionals who provide every possible support to groom their students. This can also be seen in the 3 dimensional NSW model of pedagogy.
The first is the intellectual quality where the teachers try to develop the intellectual quality within their students. They try to engross students in many intellectual activities. This helps them to develop a proper understanding and a critical insight. This is really very important because the students have to be taught in such a way that it helps in developing a proper understanding and intellect among the students.
The second is creating a quality learning environment-This is really very important for supporting the students through all difficult lessons. Teachers try to create a very friendly environment where they can communicate with their students very easily. Teachers make sure that they are staying in regular contact with the parents so that they can keep the parents informed at a regular basis. A quality teaching environment is one that needs a two way interaction and a two way process. This helps in making the relation between the teachers and the parents much strong. At the same time they also make sure that the students also interact and share their views as well. This helps in enriching the learning environment.
Teachers often create many team activities and ask the children to take part in the same. This helps the students to cooperate with one another and develop a mutual respect for each other as well (Lewis,Wheeler & Carter,2017). Most importantly teachers try to focus on the personality building of the students and teach them how to be self-dependent.
The third one is the significance. Teachers try to teach the students the significance of learning each and every subject. They try to take up examples from the past learning course of the students and also try to show them the implications of the future. Teachers also involve themselves in an action-oriented learning process.a
The teachers have to keep in mind that they cannot teach the talented and gifted students in the same way as they teach others (Patrick et al., 2015). The gifted and the talented students are already intelligent in their own way and what they need is not an intervention. They must be given new challenges so that they can explore their qualities.
The teachers have to design the exams and re-questions for these children in a different way. However, designing separate criteria for these students is a very tough job. For an instance, a teacher who is an expert in the literature or arts background might get a student who is expertise in math. In such cases, the teacher has to do a good amount of research work over topics like golden ratio or fractal art. This will makes ire that the gifted or talented students are getting some interesting and innovative things to work upon (Stronge, 2018).
Different Interpretations of the Quote
It is from these filled up forms that the teachers will get to know the students well. Teachers will also be able to understand the learning needs and requirements of these students and design the classroom activities in a similar way (Carmichael, Newmann and King,2015). Students are to be involved in the technical grounds. These templates or forms can be given to all the students in the format of a Google form. Students will be asked to share their views and their feedbacks through these forms. It will help the teachers to make a clear perception about many of their students. Just because a student is having a good expertise in any particular field, they must not be asked to take up the entire tough and critical chapters.
Teachers must always make sure that they are selecting that particular lesson or assignment that will help in creating a good interest an enthusiasm among the students. Many team building activities must be arranged for making the children understand the values of mutual cooperation and inculcate a good team spirit among them. They will have to stay in constant touch with the guardians of the children so that they can get the active support of the parents as well. The teaching professionals will also take part in many teacher training sessions in order to upgrade themselves with the modern techniques of teaching.
Conclusion
Analyzing the quotes from Man and Superman, it can be concluded that G.B Shaw emphasized on the co-ordination between men for better pursuit of personal development. Further research in the course of this assignment leads towards the conclusion that in modern times the educational needs of the students and the parents are not similar to a section of the teaching community. Hence the guideline and projected framework of the Australian government would help the teachers to align their curriculum and dictum to the needs of the students. In the context of teaching the benefits of the NAPLAN methodology have been discussed and research reveals that this meets most of the criteria of the modern teaching meds as well as the government’s guidelines. Further analysis in this research study can be utilized to conclude that the teachers should realize that the learning needs of various students differ with their IQ standards and interest in specific subjects. Hence, in this context, this research sheds light on various communication processes through which the students can convey their preferences to the educators.
References and Bibliography
Bates, T., 2015. Teaching in a digital age: Guidelines for designing teaching and learning for a digital age. Tony Bates Associates.
Carmichael, D.L., Newmann, F.M. & King, M.B., 2015. Authentic intellectual work: Common standards for teaching social studies. In Social Studies Today (pp. 63-74). Routledge.
Carroll, J. and Ryan, J. eds., 2007. Teaching international students: Improving learning for all. Routledge.
Crane, A. &Matten, D., 2016. Business ethics: Managing corporate citizenship and sustainability in the age of globalization. Oxford University Press.
Finkelstein, A., Ferris, J., Weston, C. & Winer, L., 2016. informed principles for (re) designing teaching and learning spaces. Journal of Learning Spaces, 5(1).
Fraser-Seeto, K., Howard, S.J. & Woodcock, S., 2015. An investigation of teachers’ awareness and willingness to engage with a self-directed professional development package on gifted and talented education.
Gale, C.L., 2016. A Study Guide for George Bernard Shaw’s” Man and Superman”. Gale, Cengage Learning.
Lewis, R.B., Wheeler, J.J. & Carter, S.L., 2017. Teaching students with special needs in general education classrooms. Pearson.
Littlejohn, A. & Milligan, C., 2015. Designing MOOCs for Professional Learners: Tools and Patterns to Encourage Self-regulated Learning. eLearning Papers, Special Issue on Design Patterns for Open Online Teaching and Learning, 42.
Patrick, H., Gentry, M., Moss, J.D., & Mcintosh, J.S., 2015. Understanding gifted and talented adolescents’ motivation. The handbook of secondary gifted education, pp.185-210.v
Rabinowitz, S., 2015. Session N: The move to NAPLAN online: The advantages and the road ahead.
Rogers, J.A., 2014. From “Superman” to man. Wesleyan University Press.
Shaw, G.B., 2018. Man and Superman. Ozymandias Press.
Simonson, M., Smaldino, S. & Zvacek, S.M. eds., 2014. Teaching and learning at a distance: Foundations of distance education. IAP.
Stronge, J.H., 2018. Qualities of effective teachers. ASCD.
Whalley, M. ed., 2017. Involving Parents in Their Children’s Learning: A Knowledge-Sharing Approach. Sage. Bastiani, J., 2018. Parents as partners: genuine progress or empty rhetoric?. In Parents and Schools (1993) (pp. 101-116). Routledge.
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