STOP STEALING DREAMS

Seth Godin has said "What is school for?". Schools are set up to make students obidient and fit in to the society as he explained the case in America. I believe it is not any different from Turkey. Especially many schools have so strict rules which actually make no sense. When I reflect on my high school experience, I remember that whenever a teacher saw my hair untied, s/he scolded me in front of everyone. Female students had to tie their hair up. It was a strict rule in my high school. When I try to find any rationale for this rule, I can't think of a reasonable one. So, I believe these kind of of rules are designed to make students obidient. Also, many students are required to memorize nearly all of the content of instructional units throughout an academic unit; instuctional objectives are based on memorization in Turkish education system. In this respect, it's again no different from American education system as Seth Godin has explained. As prospective effective teachers, I believe we should form a life- long habit for our students. This is critical thinking. This may challange status-quo but it is what an effective teacher should do. By critical thinking, our students would answer the question of "What is school for" by themselves.

Reflection on Nature vs. Nurture

How much are we influenced by our nature and nurture is a key concept in behaviorism and many experiments such as Skinner's experiment with a rat and Pavlo's experiment with a dog geneally deals with unconscious or conscious behavior. In this aspect, we can reflect it to our own success As far as I can reflect on my own resource of success, I would attribute it equally to nature and nurture. Personally, I believe a person won't be able to succeed without the help of his/her particular characteristics such as optimisim. Optimisim determinies how a person react to a stimulus. I think some people have optimisim by nature and the others have optimisim by nurturing. So, it is open to dispute;what do you think about it ? Personally, I believe that I have optimisim by nature which helps me a lot in my studies. When I face with a diffucult task, I always try to remain optimistic about the subject that is concerned. Also, my family especially my mother has a very positive influence on me as an experienced English teacher. This part is about nurture I believe. As a prospective English teacher, I sugggest nature and nurture of students should be considered by taking students' characteristics into consideration. I mean students' chracarteristic really determines it. If a student is more dependant to interpersonal relationships,then we can consider nurture.

Reflection on Teacher-Centered and Learner-Centered Instruction

Personally, I believe the issue of teacher-centered and learner-centered instruction has always been a contoversial topic in Turkey. It is quite important to make a choice between teacher-centered and learner-centered instruction beacuse it makes up a dramatic portion of instructional objectives and also a teacher's teaching philosophy. The issue is arguable as there are teachers who favour teacher-centered instruction;on the other hand, there are some teachers who favour learner-centered instruction. In my high school, I had both kinds of these teachers.What makes them different is the importance they give to how much understood by students. For example,my English teacher always told us what we would be be able to do at the at end of the lesson or an instuctional unit. However, our history teacher always told us his yearly curriculum and how much we had progressed according to his plan. One thing I reliazed in history lessons was that even if we didn't understand an instuctional unit, he just moved on to catch up with his own schedule. It was quite teacher-centered. As a result,it wasn't any beneficial to our class. When we have come to talk about evaluation of these two types of instructions,I have more difficulty in teacher-centered instruction. As I have mentioned above, the teacher didn't care how much we understood. Especialy in written exams,I had no idea about what we were expected to study or know. But in learner-centered instruction, I was more enthusiastic and self-confident because I knew what I was expected to know and study. I am sure all students in Turkey go through the same problems!