Carrie’s TEBlog

            In response to Grewer’s response on the Brophy article, I agree with him about treating a student’s fears seriously. I found it interesting that he realized this is the real world so there is such thing as failure. The issue sometimes I think is teachers try to set up their students in a perfect environment. They want it to be inviting and fun. This however is not always the best way to teach, as we learned in class. Our role as teachers is not only to teach subject matter, but also teach students how to make it in the real world. If we tell students they will not fail if they try hard, then we are setting them up for an extreme let down. As teachers we must present them with failure in a way they can handle. Brophy says failure is important to in the right way. By showing students they can overcome failure, they gain motivation to try more challenging things they could fail doing. I also liked that Grewer pointed out the idea of showing students they have a problem. I am not sure breaking them is the right approach. Showing them they are enabling themselves is important to changing their behavior. I think it can be done in ways that are more subtle, that once students catch onto they will feel even more at fault. Then showing them how to change and deal with this is our next task.