OP9 Teachers open the door. Students enter by themselves

As a prospective teacher, it is important taking some time to contemplate the features of an ideal teacher. Considering the essence of education, however, teacher's role is not just stuffing students with facts and information but helping them to develop their potential ability and achieve something beyond their expectation. Therefore, it seems necessary that teachers position themselves as guiders of students for accomplishing their academic purposes, and in this sense I agree with the quote " teachers open the door. Students enter by themselves"

First of all, the comment means that teachers should take a role as providers of guidance for students. That is, teachers convey knowledge and skills, yet more importantly they should encourage students to dedicate themselves to independent, voluntary work throughout the course. Consequently, the outcomes would largely be modified by the individual students' effort. This motto implies some significance, particularly, in terms of considering the importance of both sides, the teacher and student, in order to achieve students' academic goals. From my personal experiences in college, I noticed as long as students are decided to commit themselves into the teachers' direction, it can enormously accumulate their competence and skills which might not be expected to be obtained at the initial stage of the course work.

The class following this motto seems more effective in terms of increasing students' overall competence on the subject. With the careful guidance by a teacher, students are offered the room for self-awareness and development by themselves. For instance, through my writing class for this semester, I was able to polish my writing skills making myself confident about academic essays with no such burden that initially irritated me a lot. The objective of the class was obvious, and based on the purpose, the teacher directed me to be engaged in huge tasks so hard. During the process of training by myself, I became aware of my weak points and tried to be more qualified writer comparing my work with excellent jobs from other classmates and the teacher. Once the teacher suggested the ways to go, I followed his directions and devoted myself hoping to be a better writer, and it proves to work for me.

On the other hand, in case of poetry class, the way he teaches us is quite similar to that from the high school class where a teacher prepares all the material, translate symbolic meanings of the words, and suggests standardized implication of the poem before we critically think or appreciate it by ourselves. Therefore, in spite of teacher's dedication and effort, I seldom feel this class broaden my scope of knowledge about the English poetry. This sort of instruction is so kind that we even don't think about what to do for this class ourselves: too little burden and every thing is going so easily since the teacher prepares for me everything. He not only opens the door to the world of poetry but ride us to enter the door, breaking our desire for pursuing more knowledge and skills and at the same time restricting our boundary to just the materials that he had prepared for us.

For the successful implementation of the role as a guider, a teacher should present the ultimate goal to be achieved upon the completion of a course work, suggest clear phases to be carried out and leave more spaces for students to conduct challenging tasks on their own, In this aspect, teachers should equip themselves with full of knowledge, understanding and experiences so that students can be provided with more opportunities to build up their competence in achieving their academic goals.

Personally, I disagree to the quote above for some reasons.
I am doubtful that with less positive or aggressive methods, we can motivate students enough to enter by themselves. As we all know well, Korean students are very busy with their studying. Most of the students go to Hakwon or are taught by private tutors. They have been having many things to do. They are lack of sleep and don't have much time to do other things. I think expecting them too much is not a good idea. The quote sounds idealistic but doesn't sound realistic.

Personally, I'd find Jongwoo's opinion here somewhat more agreeable if the blue parts were inserted...

Jongwoo wrote:Personally, I disagree to the quote above for some reasons.
I am doubtful that with less positive or aggressive methods, we can motivate students enough to enter by themselves. As we all know well, Korean students are kept very busy with their studying through purely extrinsic motivation processes. Most of the students go to Hakwon or are taught by private tutors, because they want somebody to push them and motivate them - in short, they want somebody else to "enter" them rather than entering on their own. They have been having many things to do, not much of which they ever choose to do on their own initiative. They are lack of sleep and don't have much time to do other things, usually on account of poor organization skills and a lot of extra time devoted to 'study' that doesn't really help them all that much. I think expecting them too much is not a good idea, because it would scare them to be independent in their thinking and efforts. The quote sounds idealistic but doesn't sound realistic, so many would prefer to just keep things as they are and continue to complain about it rather than really change anything for their own good.

~ Jason

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