Character education involves teaching of values and virtues that enables each student to mature themselves as dutiful citizens. Character education instructs students to live life positively. neighbors and communities. It helps a kid to instill the core values in life helping him/ her to grow up to be a well educated, sensible and respectful citizen. These fundamental morals and ethics are based on esteem, honesty, integrity, righteousness and character development. Any child’s determining years are spent in school rather than at home. Therefore, character education programs and activities conducted in schools will contribute to positively influencing a kid’s future and career effectively.

By instilling the seeds of strong moral and ethical integrity in a kid, character education programs and activities can do wonders. These programs and campaigns should be broad enough to focus on a variety of qualities and virtues that can contribute effectively to build character in kids.

Schools can instigate character education to the normal curriculum in a many ways.

Teachers should make use of meetings conducted in their class rooms as a strong and efficient means to focus on moral virtues among their students. Teachers should encourage students to discuss and address certain hands-on experiences. They should also entertain students to discuss about their feelings and their perception on others. While discussing these issues during a class meeting, it is advisable to keep Character education as a guide. These interactions among students and with teachers’ will definitely help to respect and regard each other with self-esteem.

Teachers and counselors who conduct above character education programs and campaigns can also instill social skills in their students and make them understand and learn about life skills. These skills definitely help each and every student to deal with a composed and balanced approach and face any type of situation that life may bring. Teachers and school administrators can devise many character education programs that bring about positive personality development in a kid making them a more mature and compassionate individual.

Teachers should take the onus of teaching character education to their students since such programs or activities cannot be performed at home or due to the lack of right techniques to execute them. To conclude, I’m reiterating the fact that it is the responsibility of teachers, parents and the community itself to train, and develop a kid to become a socially respectable and responsible citizen of this country.

Academic instruction isn’t the only responsibility teachers have in today’s classrooms. More and more, teachers are being called on to teach students about values … things like making good decisions, the showing of respect, taking responsibility, choosing friends, and having a positive attitude.  It’s a responsibility that could be overwhelming, considering the limited hours available in a school day, the number of kids in the classroom, and the diversity of backgrounds and personalities each child represents.

Character Education by Just Do The Right Thing” is a practical and powerful tool that equips educators to tackle values training with confidence.

By: Francis David

Are you working on careers in education marketing? Where are you hunting for the teachers of the future? How is that going for you? Finding the teachers of the future and getting them into the career can be a challenge. That is unless you understand what they are and where they will be looking for work. Here are 3 tips to get you started on your marketing campaign.

1) Who are they? – The teachers of the future are smart, motivated individuals. They are the rising stars in the education system. They will have a good grasp of concepts and love communicating that information to others. They will be the consummate students and leaders. Knowing these and other characteristics will help you find them.

2) Where are they looking for work? – The teacher of the future will be using a variety of venues to seek employment.

The most important is the internet. They will be posting their resumes on line and browsing the job sites for opportunities of employment. They will be scouring blog, social media, and internet employment agencies for the opportunity to make a living teaching.

3) Where are they looking for education? – Today’s college students are gravitating to the internet for an education. The future teachers are no different. The online courses can be accessed from anywhere and are generally faster than obtaining a diploma from a 4-year college. Marketing the education to these individuals will find your future teachers.

The careers in education marketing processes are a little different from normal marketing. The customers you will be encountering will be internet savvy and be looking to interact with it for their education and employment. Understanding the internet marketing process can really make a difference in your success. Find a good mentoring and marketing program to help you market and find the teachers you seek.

In the academic community, surveys range from those that collect information about students to those that assess teachers’ performance. While the latter type may not be the most common, they are beneficial to both the school administrators and the student body in the following ways:

* Teacher evaluation surveys let students express their comments, suggestions, or concerns about their teachers. School administrators can then use this feedback to get a better idea of each faculty member’s skills and capabilities.

* Similar to teachers grading students, students can also grade teachers when it comes to performance. Teachers can sometimes treat students subjectively, but a survey gives them a more objective perspective of themselves as instructors and the way they conduct their classes, thus helping them improve their methods in the classroom.

These surveys also bring attention to the teachers’ strengths and weaknesses, allowing the school to take proper action for both exceptional and poor performing teachers.

* This type of survey provides feedback which tells the teachers’ superiors if some instructors should be promoted to a higher position. On the other hand, if a teacher is found to lack understanding or expertise of his subject, the superior can decide to let him continue to teach or ask him to work on his teaching skills.

* Faculty members can find such surveys that look into their performance inspiring and enlightening as they learn ways to improve themselves and deal with their students better.

* Teacher assessment surveys are also key to students’ performance as they determine whether teachers treat their students appropriately or not.If a teacher acts negatively towards his students, his behavior can affect the class’s performance as they may only feel pressured to do well or the learning environment can turn into an unfavorable one.

Surveys that take a look at teachers’ performance are helpful to everyone – the teachers, the students, and the faculty supervisors all benefit from them.

If there were no such surveys, students will have trouble voicing out their concerns about their teachers. These surveys let the student body speak up without having to worry about being berated for their honesty.

What separates human beings from animals is our ability to think, our conscience and our appetite for knowledge. The system of getting knowledge starts from day one of our life. A child is in its mother’s womb, doesn’t know how to breathe but the moment it takes birth, it starts breathing. Likewise in a child’s life every day is a learning day and every moment is a learning moment.

Thus home is the first ‘gurukul’ for a child and the parents are the biggest ‘gurus’ ever. Right from identifying the objects to uttering its first word, a child learns everything from its parents and family members as the first hand source of knowledge.Education is nothing but a way of getting knowledge and learning the ways of life.

Learning, in a vast sense encompasses knowing things and learning how to do that, building characters, furnishing thoughts and ideas, and many more.

So in a nut shell we can say that whatever we know or try to do comes under learning. Life is nothing but an ever learning process. Even a great scholar like Socrates said that “I know that I know nothing”. But yes, learning is definitely a way of acquiring knowledge.

So it becomes very important to empower the child with the right kind of learning. In that regard, the contributions of parents are immense, because they are the first source of knowledge for a child. The child learns the ways of life and understands it better with the help of the parents and family members.These days parents often complain that they feel a detachment from their child; they can’t communicate well with them. Spending quality time with the child doesn’t only mean taking them to a park or fun land or sitting with them in front of the TV set.

It means the time that you have spent trying to understand your child’s mindset and needs. Try to relate with the heart of your child by asking your child how the day at school was, who the child’s friends are and how teachers appreciate the child in the classroom so on. The parents should make the child realize about the importance of him in their lives. This sort of interaction often helps making the parent-child bond much stronger. Not only in the childhood, but the process of learning continues throughout life. The parents’ part is to hold the child’s hands in every walk of life, even if the child becomes a grown up man or woman.
 

Educators, school administrators and curriculum developers around the globe work hand-in-hand to improve the kind of teaching styles and techniques they have for their learners. One great way that they think would benefit majority of the students is the integration of technology – innovative and effective ways to make both teaching and learning fun and enjoyable.

Likewise, in the music education setting, music teachers and facilitators have integrated various means of innovation and technology such as the use of online learning and communication through the power of Internet as well as the inclusion of writing and reading blogs related to learning and teaching music. With these kinds of music teacher resources, both the teachers and the learners experience the convenience, the fun and the excitement of music in a general perspective.

Initially, the word blog comes from the key terms web log, which is referred to as a web-based application where the authors write and post articles or anything that interests him.

This is also considered to be an online diary or journal of many students, writers and professionals all over the world. In the advent of this innovative way of expressing oneself, blog has grown and turned into an effective and practical music teacher resource where millions of individuals from different interests use to communicate and learn.

Over the years, blogging in teaching and learning music has been proven beneficial to create an environment or an online community where good discussions reign at all times. It is also true that music teachers are introducing and incorporating new kinds of technologies into the classroom.

With this objective, a wide variety of music teacher resources has been utilized and developed all for the betterment of music education.

This may even include not only such improvement in the means of learning, but also a change in people’s attitude to teaching or learning.

Blogs as means of teaching and learning can be a useful tool for both students and teachers. Through this, they can keep in touch anywhere at anytime via online – providing a way to communicate openly without overspending and necessarily having to meet face to face. Educational blogs create a new kind of classroom where students and teachers can meet beyond the four walls of the classroom and go further the boundaries of the school yard, improving their skills through continuous communication.

When music students are being exposed to writing and reading musical and educational blogs, they tend to have the possibility to effectively interact with the other students and be able to explore knowledge, ideas and skills in music. Therefore, using blogs helps the student bloggers in their daily activities; thus, it also increases their levels of interests and motivation. Participating and communicating more in online activities, students can surely enjoy each social interaction experience.

In a world that is constantly changing, it is riskier to plan, control, and do little than to continuously try things out. So make your music students involve with various innovative and effective music teacher resources. Make your active learners write, read and participate in music-related blogs today! Enjoy each blogging experience and see a more positive result on the academic excellence of these bunches of students.

How many times have we after our day long work got a feeling of contentment, a feeling that we have done something meaningful today? Well, the answer may be difficult to find because maximum of us work for ourselves, living a robotic life. But there are people who work for others and cherish their profession. Special education teacher NYC is mentor to a child and makes a valuable impression on that child for life. Special education teachers usually stick to their post for many years before being transferred because it is so gratifying. Once you get to know your students and you sustain your classroom, the children will have a sense of steadiness and everything works well together.

A good Special education teacher NYC is ardent about her students and knows this is what she is supposed to do. A good teacher should treasure her students despite the hindrances and if you own a real passion for teaching special education kids, then this should not be intricate at all.

A lot of people go in to it wondering they were called to do it but after spending some time with the kids and going through the ups and downs that come with the job, they give up because they can’t handle the stress.

A special education teacher is an exceptional job that not everyone can do. It takes hard work, empathy, and the aptitude to love and nurture your children that generates a positive environment that a child can be trained in. Work with parents, grandparents, relatives, friends, and professionals that have a helping hand in that child’s life to accomplish the goals that you set for the child and to help them realize all landmarks. A special education teacher NYC needs structure and organization skills a lot more than the standard teacher because special needs students take time to be acquainted and be at ease with their surroundings. You should be able to provide a stable environment for them and some permanence by being on time, planning the lessons ahead of time and sustaining anything else that helps the students be more at ease with you.

A special education teacher, without confidence will not be able to make much of an impact on her students. Many of these students can differentiate between weak and strong characters, and retort differently to both. Without the self-assurance and confidence needed, you might have a hard time being followed. Be devoted to your students. Many of the students you will be instructing may be having you as the first reliable partner in their life, and this will definitely build an attachment. Try and be a strong dedicated mentor for them, it will go a long way in enhancing their self-confidence and independence because if they get to see that you trust them and they can believe in themselves, it will make them stronger.

Once you have a place as a special education teacher NYC the first thing you should be doing is sending a letter home with all your students to introduce yourself to parents and guardians. Ask for a one-on-one meeting with each parent/guardian within the first two weeks of initiating. Meeting with the parents will give you the chance to comprehend more about every child from a parent’s point of view. No other person can give you an observation of that child better than the parents/guardians.

The big question now is, what does it take to make a good special education teacher? Can anyone just become one? Here are some of the qualities that make a good special education teacher.

1. You understand your role and love being with your student. You can’t become a teacher and just expect your student to get into your lessons right away or to actually follow you each and every time.

2. A good special education teacher also has a lot of patience and realizes that she has to wait her time and probably have to do things over and over again in order for her students to learn. A good teacher though is willing to do all these because seeing her students learn is more than worth it.

3. You must get to know your students and find ways to make them comfortable with you. Most special kids are shy or scared of strangers so it is up to you as their teacher to reach out and make sure that you welcome them.

4. As a special education teacher, you must be able to cope with challenge and even thrive on it. You wouldn’t really know what you’ll be facing with and every special child will be different. It is important that you give each and every child the attention he needs and though he or his situation may prove difficult at first, you have to find a way to overcome it.

5. A good special education teacher finds ways to get her point across and makes sure that all these are fun and engaging to her students. With special kids, there is no one defined way or some basic course plan that you will follow through to the letter. Each kid is different and will have different needs so it is up to you to find ways for them to learn and reach their maximum potential.

Is your child interested in learning a musical instrument? That’s great! It’s now time to find a music teacher for him who will be his guiding force throughout his musical learning. But, you should ensure that the teacher has had a sound music teacher education so that you are assured of professional and understanding care.

If you don’t know the basic criteria for searching for the most suitable music teacher for your child, it will just come down to your luck. And should you trust your luck especially when it comes to your child and his entire future?

To give your child the opportunity to explore his musical talents to the best of his ability, I suggest you to hire a teacher from acclaimed music teacher education programs.

Children are no doubt excited with their music lessons at the beginning of their education due to innate curiosity and eagerness.

Their music teacher, whoever he is, however does not remain so kind and patient forever. He soon comes out of the “child’s shoes” and expects responsible and diligent practice from the child for at least half an hour every day.

Restless children especially find it difficult to follow the stricter regime. As the music teacher starts using “professional” language rather than kid language, the children start losing focus and get more restless. Here is where the exceptional music teachers stand apart from the average ones. They will think from the perspective of the children and modify their teaching accordingly. Children are brilliant imaginers and this is what needs to be tapped to teach them correct reading of musical notes, correct movements, sounding, etc.

Music teacher education trains teachers in how to sustain the child’s interest in musical learning. Else if you let your child train under average teachers, you will soon see your child just “serve his time” at the lessons and homework and lose the whole point of learning music.

If music teachers continue their strict ways of handling music lessons, the child loses interest, which is the lifeblood of learning. Once a favorite of the child, the teacher will now be seen as a monster that keeps reprimanding him for laziness and inattention. Parents too will start pestering and forcing the child to practice more. But remember, dear parents, force will only lead your child to depression.

How do you make out if your child is losing interest in learning music? Simple – just look into his eyes and see if the spark is still there. Recall the spark that was in his eyes on the first day of his music lessons. Is it still the same?

If the teacher you choose for your child puts his music teacher education to good use, he will know the psychology of children at every stage of music learning, and will be in charge of the situation!

The role of a teacher in a person’s life is very important and many important people have spoken very positively about the influence and impact that a good teacher had on their development.  There is no doubt that a teacher who can use their charm and personality to bring lessons to life will be well remembered by pupils and can hopefully make the learning process more enjoyable.  Of course, some teachers prefer to have a strict disciplinary code in the classroom and can be said to rule the room with an iron fist.

This process works for many pupils and teachers and is something that can also help a pupil to make the most of their time at school. There is no doubt that a good teacher can make all the difference in school but regardless of the quality of the teacher, they should always be open to new ideas and assistance.

Introducing new technology into the classroom should always be to assist the teacher and to make their life easier but it is easy to see why some teachers may feel as though their position is being threatened.  After all, if a teacher has taught pupils for a number of years without any problems or difficulties, they will likely feel that the new product is an intrusion or comment on their teaching methods.

This is certainly not the case but all teachers should be aware that there are many ways which they can provide a better service to their pupils.  Although the teacher may be providing a lesson plan that is tried and tested throughout the years, today’s generation of children are very different from the children from previous generations.

Modern children are very comfortable with TVs and computers and it is natural that they may turn off slightly at the prospect of learning in a traditional manner.  This is where a good teacher would be able to react to their pupils and update their teaching methods.  There are many great educational technology products which should help any teacher grab the attention of a child and retain throughout the day or particular class.

Teachers should have nothing to fear about the introduction of educational technology into the classroom and given time, they may believe that these new products are able to offer great assistance in the classroom.  Anything which keeps children entertained during the learning process should be considered a very positive thing and something that teachers can use to their advantage when delivering a strong lesson plan.

Educational technology is not there to replace teachers; it is now being used as a valuable teaching aid with plenty of technology in the classroom that now allows teachers to engage with the material they are teaching in a new and unique way.

Many educators have long advocated the teaching of critical thinking skills such as reasoning and problem solving. No action was generated, however, until 1980, when the Rockefeller Commission on the Humanities recommended that critical thinking be included in the U.S. Office of Education definition of basic skills. Three universities now offer a master of arts program in teaching critical thinking; the California State University system requires a course in critical thinking; and the College Board has made it one of the six basic skills needed for college (Educational Testing Service 1984, 8; Ennis 1985, 28).
There are many definitions of critical thinking. Richard Paul (1988, 49) calls it the ability to reach sound conclusions based on observation and information. Barry Beyer (1983) describes it as assessing the authenticity, accuracy and worth of knowledge claims, beliefs, or arguments.

Stephen Norris (1985, 40-45) says it helps students to “apply everything they already know and feel, to evaluate their own thinking, and especially to change their behavior….”
Critical thinking is not the same as, and should not be confused with, intelligence; it is a skill that may be improved in everyone (Walsh and Paul 1988, 13). However, it is not something that necessarily develops with maturity and so should be taught to all ages. The New Jersey Test of Reasoning Skills, for example, found that the mean scores of college freshmen tested were less than one point above the mean scores of sixth graders (Lipman 1980).
HOW CAN CRITICAL THINKING BE TAUGHT?
There is some controversy as to whether or not critical thinking should be taught as an independent course (the process approach) or within established courses (the content approach).
Those favoring the process method maintain that like reading and writing, critical thinking is an enabling discipline and deserves separate instruction (Lipman 1988, 143). They argue that an independent course would prevent students from confining critical thinking to a specific subject matter, thereby inhibiting its development (Lipman 1980, 211); would avoid repetition of introductory principles in each subject; and would encourage the application of cognitive skills to other disciplines (Ennis 1985, 29). Matthew Lipman (1980, 209) recommends all grade levels learn reasoning through philosophy because of its unique, intellectually adventurous approach.
Learning cognitive skills separately, however, may not necessarily facilitate their application to content-area studies or real-life situations. Research suggests the effectiveness of such courses depends on parallel efforts across the curriculum (Resnick 1987, 34-35), including training all teachers in cognitive skills (Pauker 1987, 27).
Advocates of the content approach argue that certain cognitive skills are specific to particular disciplines and should be taught in context (Ashton 1988, 4). This method requires that teachers have extensive knowledge of their own discipline and of how it differs from others. They can then instruct students how to apply cognitive skills in their areas and when to make contextual links with other areas (Chambers 1988, 5-6). While this approach enhances content-domain learning (Resnick 1987, 36) and eliminates the problem of scheduling an extra course (Martin 1983), it has not been widely successful in transferring cognitive skills across the curriculum (Resnick 1987, 36) and imposes the burden of redesigning the way courses are taught (Pauker 1987, 27).
Consideration of the advantages and disadvantages of each leads one to conclude the solution is not exclusively in either method, but in combination. Such a unified approach to critical thinking would provide a framework for instruction in any field (Presseisen 1988).
HOW WILL THIS EMPHASIS AFFECT TEACHER EDUCATION?
To improve student performance on critical thinking tests, schools of education must improve teacher training. They must teach cognitive skills to preservice teachers before training them to teach these skills in the classroom (Ashton 1980, 2). They must integrate critical thinking skills into all aspects of teacher preparation and train future teachers to be models of effective thinking strategies (Walsh and Paul 1988, 49).
Schools of education have several obstacles to overcome before accomplishing these goals, including an inadequate knowledge base on teaching critical thinking; a lack of consensus on methods of evaluating critical thinking programs; conditions that require classroom management at the expense of academic instruction; and a lack of support for collaboration between liberal arts and teacher education faculty (Ashton 1988, 2-5).
Elementary and secondary schools considering a critical thinking skills emphasis must make a long-term commitment to programs fostering the critical thinking process; provide inservice training; assign mentors to new teachers; allot time for teachers to share effective strategies for instruction; involve experienced teachers in the selection of instructional materials and testing programs (Committee on Standards 1988); and appoint a committee to guide curriculum development (Walsh and Paul 1988, 49).
ARE THERE ANY PROGRAMS THAT PROMOTE CRITICAL THINKING?
Project THISTLE (Thinking Skills in Teaching and Learning) is a teacher training program designed to improve the precollege preparation of urban high school students by strengthening their critical thinking abilities (Oxman and Barell 1983).
Lipman’s Philosophy for Children is a program for younger students that develops informal logic skills through the discussion of issues raised in narrative tests, including problems of meaning, truth, ethics, reality and imagination (Resnick 1987, 31).
The Instrumental Enrichment program (Feuerstein et al. 1986) is a content-free, paper-and-pencil program that improves problem-solving strategies in 14 cognitive areas and promotes broad application of these strategies from classroom subjects to real-life situations (Martin 1987). The program is currently being applied in the preservice education department at Gallaudet University (Martin 1984, 68-69).
Tactics for Thinking, a teacher-directed approach to critical thinking, is a flexible program for grades K-12 that can be tailored to each school’s curriculum and student needs. It focuses on 22 skills and processes that can be applied selectively or to all grades and subjects.

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