Voice of Pedagogy
What Teachers Really Want to Say and What Americans Need to Know about American Public Education
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Painful Thinking and Student Potential
Here is the most important aspect of teaching: you must challenge them to think in a problem-solving fashion using critical thinking. Intellectual challenges will change their future.
Let me give you an example. In order to solve a problem students must look beyond the superficial to see what is hidden, what is not stated, because therein lies the solution. From that point they must make conceptual connections to universals that lead to solutions. Mental challenges task the brain. A true mental challenge causes mental pain that can only be overcome with focused persistence, but eventually students will tap into a relatively unused part of their brains and thus push their brains to a new level. Once they have reached this new level several times, they will see the world in a different light, but more importantly, they will have realized their own true intellectual potential. With that newly discovered potential, they can then see beyond old horizons, gain self-confidence and see boundless possibilities for their future. They now have a newfound hope and vision to carry them forward into the future.
When I attended high school I was challenged immensely by two course areas: Latin and Chemistry. I struggled and struggled in both subjects, but I loved the challenge nonetheless. My lab partner (who is now an aerospace engineer) and I had to research a very complex subject involving metallurgical spectroscopy and explain the process in step-by-step detail for a class presentation. We were reading research intended for graduate level chemists. We knew we were most likely going beyond the required scope of the presentation, but we kept on digging because it challenged us. We spent hours and hours on the project and the beginning was mentally painful because we delved deeper and deeper into the subject until our heads were spinning.
I never went on to become a chemist or even an engineer, but it pushed my brain to new levels and gave me intellectual confidence to prepare me for university studies. Up to that point, I was just taking Advanced Chemistry because I liked the subject and I liked the teacher. That presentation opened up my brain to the possibilities of my future. Many students today never experience that, because they are never mentally challenged in high school. If they are challenged later in life, it is most likely too late to do anything about it.
A good teacher must place a student in a situation where they are forced to use the problem-solving areas of the brain. It doesn’t matter what the subject area may be. If you can solve a problem in the field of Science, you can use those same skills to solve any real-world problem. Life is a long succession of solving problems; therefore, an educator’s number one priority should be teaching problem-solving skills to students at the high school level.
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About the Book
Our president knows it, our parents know it, and our children know it: education is the single most important key to achieving success in today’s competitive world. In this handbook, a seasoned professor combines ideas from teachers across the nation with research and insight gathered from his own classroom experiences to share a compelling narrative on what works and does not work in today’s public education system.
Dr. Otto E. Arschdorn, who taught in Germany and the United States, offers a provocative perspective on American public education that he hopes will become a wake-up call that our system of learning needs to be transformed. As he examines life inside the classroom, Dr. Arschdorn offers thoughtful opinions on
teaching methodologies that work in the classroom; ways to motivate unmotivated students; why schools should consider implementing a three-branch educational approach; how to stop disenchanted parents from taking control; and why critical thinking and problem solving are at the center of academic existence.
Voice of Pedagogy provides a platform for American teachers to offer ideas for positive change in our public school system so that we can meet the educational challenges of the future and continue to be a country of free thinkers.
About the Author
Otto E. Arschdorn received his PhD in cultural anthropology from the University of Vienna. He taught both university and Gymnasium levels in Munich and Berlin for fifteen years before coming to the United States in 1992. He was a high school and university instructor in the Boston area for twenty years.