Post 457: Great TED Talk by Rita Pierson on Teaching and Connections

Post 457: Great TED talk by Rita Pierson on Teaching and Connections

 

In this 8 minute speech, Rita Pierson, an educator for 40 years talks about the importance of teaching and relationships. She says to be a successful educator, you have to have good caring relationships with students. After all, she says, "Students will not learn from people they don't like." She talked about how her mother also an educator used to put peanut butter sandwiches inside her desk, so students who were hungry had something to eat.  Both Rita and her mother told students ,"They were somebody. They deserve an education." Then, when Rita's mother died, many of her former students showed up at her funeral and told Rita that her mother had made a difference in their lives. To conclude, Rita Pierson says, 'Educators teach to make a difference.'

 My boss sent me this video in a faculty wide email telling us to watch this video and then reflect upon our own teaching. He wants us faculty to think back on this past Winter Quarter and make goals on how we can better reach our students. For me, I want to work more on reaching more at risk students, and encouraging them to keep on working, and if they have a problem, then by all means, email me, contact me and we can arrange a one-on-one Zoom session to hash out whatever is wrong.

My years of teaching has taught me that it is never the lesson that is important in day to day teaching, it is caring about the students. Because like Rita Pierson says, students don't learn from people they don't like. Once I get my students to like and respect me, then the lesson teaches itself. For me, the greatest part of teaching is seeing my students improve in their writing skill and more importantly, they gain so much confidence, that they become life long lovers of writing. Here is the speech by Rita Pierson: