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Techniques and methods in Language Teaching > The Nature of Students By Rousseau
The Nature of Students By Rousseau
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Nebal
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The Nature of Students By Rousseau
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Hello wonderful teachers,
As far as Students � Nature is concerned, Rousseau �s theory about teaching stresses that the environment determines whether a student is good or evil. It has been proven through longitudinal studies that identical twins, which have the same genetic abilities and talents, can be affected by differing environments, either negatively or positively depending upon the individual situation.
Rousseau also felt that most students have about the same intelligence. All students have the same intelligence; it falls largely onto the teacher to find the way to help the student reach his or her potential for intelligence.
Do you agree with Rousseau?? Give pieces of evidence from your personal teaching experience.
All opinions are welcome . Variety is the very spice of life.
Hugs,
Nebal
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18 Sep 2009
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Ivona
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Variety is the very spice of life.
Indeed, it is. 
As to the environment thing ... i think the students� behaviour is a replica of the adults� behaviour around them (they �learn� from them), so i guess they are influenced by the environment. There is huge lack of respect towards the teachers (in our schools) and it all comes from the parents and others who look down upon us. Then, the media, the society as a whole ... the students are .. errr .. what do i call them ... a �final product� and they are/should be the least to blame; still, we do hold so much against them - unfairly ...
(Ok, that�s what i could brainstorm in these few seconds as my hubby is already pulling me away from the pc being so eager to play his new computer game ... Heya, C!  )
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18 Sep 2009
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Zora
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I �ll skip the environmental part since this is a proven fact in any situation - we are all products of our environments - except, I do think it is wrong to generalize too much since free will is at play here and cycles can be broken...
i.e. a person grew up in a loving family and turns out to be a serial killer. // a child grew up in an abusive home and is a great person who �d never lay a hand on anyone...
Now I do agree we all have more or less the same intelligence since intelligence can be measured in so many ways.
Now learning is where the hard part comes in...
Everyone is different, each student has his own way of absorbing, remembering and assimilating things. And I do think there are people who aren �t meant to study - just like I think there are people who aren �t meant to play instruments, fly a plane, cook, or drive a car...
Some of us have an innate ability to learn from others, others � abilities lay in the capability to absorb and learn from the things around them, and some are just born with the amazing ability to retain all they see or hear...
A teacher has to remember all this and try to adapt themselves to this and this is the hardest part of our job I think.
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18 Sep 2009
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Patrick
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An experiment was carried out in a primary school in Ireland a number of years ago where psychologists carried out tests on students in a number of classrooms with the aim of identifying slow starters.
A report was written on three students who were identified as being poor performers. The report went on to state that while the students were currently performing badly it was expected that they would show huge improvement over the following 18 months.
The teachers were not given access to the report, however a member of staff did manage to get hold of a copy and share the results.
18 months later a reassessment was carried out, and the students showed varying degrees of improvement, in each case the improvement was considered substantial.
The experiment, as it turned out, was not on the students but the teachers. It was designed to measure what effect, (if any), encouragement and a positive attitude from a teacher would have on a students learning ability.
It concluded that the change in teacher�s attitude towards the three students once they had read the bogus report greatly affected the students performance.
Go figure!!
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19 Sep 2009
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Ivona
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Great experiment, Patrick! I know the teachers i work with would fail the test ... and many more ... Sad, isn �t it? 
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19 Sep 2009
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