For many students, a trip abroad is the highlight of their year – and rightly so. It's a chance to learn hands-on about different cultures and explore the world with friends and enthusiastic educators. Organize one of your senior class trips in London and center it around the great museums and landmarks of the city, many of which are free to enter thanks to the now defunct Labour government's efforts to democratize culture.
The Tate Modern is dramatically housed in the modernist Bankside power station, with a 35 meter high turbine hall, 152 meters in length. It is also handily situated within close proximity of The Globe, the famous reconstruction of Shakespeare's theater, and its riverside location makes it handy for having lunch or snacks.
There are several free galleries, all themed around art movements from 1900 onwards. The Poetry and Dream gallery focuses on Surrealism and the way the artists connected their present to the past, including work by Miro and Dali. A few levels above, the 'States of Flux' exhibit explores early twentieth-century movements such as Vorticism, Cubism and Futurism, looking at how the ideas expressed broke with traditional concepts of Art. Students will likely identify with the Pop Art on show, the bright colors and collage textures reflecting the diversity of urban life.
The Tate also has educational tours in mind with its artist-led workshops designed to develop critical thinking and personal responses. All the workshops vary according to the person leading them and teachers' choices of themes, but all involve looking at art works and formulating questions.
Kids will love the Launchpad, the Science Museum's most popular gallery. Here you can experience technology hands-on, with such marvels as dry ice ponds where nuggets of carbon dioxide turn straight from a solid to a gas and dance along the surface, light tables where you can bounce multi-colored rays of light off mirrors and a thermal camera showing which parts of us are hottest.
There are other object-rich rooms and one of the most interesting is The Making of the Modern World gallery. Here you can discover iconic objects which dramatically changed the world in which we live. You'll see such ground-breaking items as the Apollo 10 command capsule, Crick and Watson's DNA model and a debris-encrusted porcelain bowl retrieved from the aftermath of Hiroshima in 1945.
There's also an IMAX cinema showcasing award-winning films in 3D which were created to raise awareness of various modern-world issues. One of the films on show this year is Deep Sea, narrated by Kate Winslet and Johnny Depp which discusses the importance of biological diversity and exposes the problems of over-fishing and bottom trawling can cause to healthy sea-life.
Sponsorship from Deutschebank means that The Globe theatre is able to offer free tickets to schools – so far, an astonishing 1,000,000 free tickets have been handed out in the name of education.
The world famous theatre was rebuilt on the Southbank and opened in 1997 with Mark Rylance at the helm as its first artistic director. The 2012 season will be an exciting one, as its will see Rylance return to The Globe for the first time in his widely acclaimed role as Olivia in The Twelfth Night. This particular production will have an all-male cast and will explore theatre in the context of Shakespeare's original performances. A tale of cruelty and comedy, the play hosts some unforgettable characters and showcases that age-old theme of unrequited love. It also has some of the most beautiful songs Shakespeare ever wrote.
If fantastic production's not enough, The Globe also offers workshops crafted to enhance the play the students will watch after the session, which helps to fully engage students in the plays. Activities involve whole group, small group and one-to-one active drama exercises designed to explore and create meaning through words and body language. The sessions are highly inclusive and fun for all students on senior class trips – even the shy ones!
Becky is a teacher in training with a passion for travelling the globe.
In the second grade, my teacher loved to tell us about the dangers of smoking. He was a reformed smoker and loved his kids enough to remind us that little bit extra to play it safe and live our lives to the fullest. He was the teacher that stayed late to help students with their homework questions, gave licorice for good behavior, and hosted a baseball card club on Tuesdays.
There are plenty of teachers out there that have touched the lives of their students and are well-remembered for their efforts. There are also plenty of teachers who are generally disliked because of their attitudes, lack of knowledge on their subject, or are just burnt out. The image of the ideal teacher changes with each student, adult, and even other teachers. In reality, nobody's perfect, but teachers can always aspire to be better for their students and themselves.
In my experience, decent teachers are becoming harder to find as the years go by. I believe fewer teachers are stretching the minds of students and challenging them to learn. In fact, many teachers that I've taken classes with simply hand over a great grade and make it nearly impossible for students to fail, as long as each one shows up for the midterm and the final. This is not the ideal teacher for me. As Dr. Roger Roubal, a TMJ and sleep apnea dentist in Omaha says, "Education is important. You can't pay good teachers enough, and poor teachers ought to not be teaching."
So what makes the ideal teacher? The answer is different for everyone. Susan Van Druten, an English teacher from East High School, says a teacher must love, appreciate, and have patience with young minds, and that teachers must love to instruct and love to learn. Van Druten has been a high school teacher for quite a few years, and has seen teachers of all types come and go.
"Teaching is hard work, but I do think there are some characters out there who play the system and give other teachers a bad reputation," she said. "One out of 10 teachers are like this and usually wreak havoc with a long, unproductive career. Then there are well-meaning people who want to teach and don't have the aptitude. That might be 2 out of 10, but I think they are the ones who care enough to realize that it is the wrong profession and quit within 5 years. So maybe 8 out of 10 teachers possess those core attributes at any one time."
Evelyn Wiant, a senior English major at the University of Colorado, agrees with Van Druten.
"The ideal teacher has a real, true love for the subject they teach," she said. "Some of my favorite teachers have been those who can't hide their enthusiasm for English, math, science, art, or whatever their subject matter."
For many, truly decent teachers can be measured by the actions and attitudes they display while teaching. It is discouraging to students to have a teacher that demeans them, has no faith in them, or berates them in front of their peers.
"A great teacher shows by his actions and attitude that he has accepted the student at the level at which they came to him, but pushes his students to do more," Van Druten said. "Sometimes the push is small and eye-rollingly ridiculous and sometimes the push is more forceful."
There is also the question of whether a teacher should be popular or even loved by their students.
"The longer I teach the more I realize that being well-loved is more important than I originally thought," Van Druten said. "Some struggling students will do more for a teacher whom they see as soft and giving as opposed to a teacher who is tough and demanding. Many students of my generation - myself included - were inspired by teachers who were so tough that we were thrilled when they grudgingly gave us praise. It took me a decade and lots of introspection to become the teacher I am today."
Wiant has a different outlook on her ideal teacher based on her experiences as a current student.
"Good teachers are not always everybody's favorite," she said. "A teacher is an authority figure, not a friend to her students. They become beloved because they're inspiring, not because they're nice. A nice teacher is useless. A friendly, demanding teacher is priceless."
She also believes that the best teachers continuously evaluate themselves and that "good teachers are aware that each student learns differently and are willing and happy to make adjustments for different learning styles."
As a current teacher, Van Druten alternatively believes that the ideal teacher can not necessarily make those adjustments.
"A great teacher is not great to all students because not all students learn the same or have the same needs," she said. "A great teacher is great to the majority of her students and realizes that she cannot be a great teacher for all her students."
Everyone has different ideas of what the perfect or near-perfect teacher means to them. Dr. Roubal, who is neither a student nor a teacher, looks back on his teachers fondly, saying that they were all in general pretty nurturing.
"One time I went to a guidance counselor for advice and asked, 'What can I do? What should I do? What would you recommend?'," Roubal said. "At the time I thought what he said was kind of silly. He said, 'I think you can do whatever you want to do.' And at the time, I thought that was pretty lame but as I reflect back on that, it's true. You can do whatever you want to do. I think though that you have to have good role models and good mentors and be guided somewhat."
Though the ideal teacher may not exist, it is always a good idea for teachers to take a step back and review their attitudes and actions after a period of time. Any teacher can better themselves by tweaking their teaching styles or monitoring their treatment of their students. Students are expected to strive for greatness, and teachers can strive for the same.
Shanna Laub writes for Off-Topic Media. Special thanks to Dr. Roger Roubal for taking time to speak with us. Dr. Roubal is an Omaha dentist who treats migraines through TMJ therapy. Dr. Roubal can be reached at:
Advanced TMJ and Sleep Center
11919 Grant Street, Suite 140
Omaha, NE 68164-3475
(402) 493-4175
