Teacher Autonomy Quotes

I'm worried that students will take their obedient place in society and look to become successful cogs in the wheel - let the wheel spin them around as it wants without taking a look at what they're doing. I'm concerned that students not become passive acceptors of the official doctrine that's handed down to them from the White House, the media, textbooks, teachers and preachers.

Similarly, if I am going to be a teacher of virtue, I need to be a virtuous teacher. If I hope to invite students into a formative educational project, then I, too, need to relinquish any myth of independence, autonomy, and self-sufficiency and recognize that my own formation is never final. Virtue is not a one-time accomplishment; it requires a maintenance program.

If I offered you a choice between being an architect for $75,000 a year and working in a tollbooth every day for the rest of your life for $100,000 a year, which would you take? I’m guessing the former, because there is complexity, autonomy, and a relationship between effort and reward in doing creative work, and that’s worth more to most of us than money. Work that fulfills those three criteria is meaningful. Being a teacher is meaningful. Being a physician is meaningful. So is being an entrepreneur,

It is crucial for everyone in society--but especially crucial for teachers, parents, and politicians--to realize that social freedom and personal autonomy depend on well-stocked imaginations, for freedom and autonomy depend on having and making choices.

Parents who view themselves as educational coaches tend to read to their children every day when they are small; when their children get older, they talk with them about their days and about the news around the world. They let their children make mistakes and then get right back to work. They teach them good habits and give them autonomy. They are teachers, too, in other words, and they believe in rigor. They want their children to fail while they are still children. They know that those lessons—about hard work, persistence, integrity, and consequences—will serve a child for decades to come.

Darkness seems to have prevailed and has taken the forefront. This country as in the 'cooperation' of The United States of America has never been about the true higher-good of the people. Know and remember this. Cling to your faith. Roll your spiritual sleeves up and get to work. Use your energy wisely. Transmute all anger, panic and fear into light and empowerment. Don't use what fuels them; all lower-energy. Mourn as you need to. Console who you need to—and then go get into the spiritual and energetic arena. There's plenty work for us to do; within and without. Let's each focus on becoming 'The President of Our Own Life. Cultivate your mind. Pursue your purpose. Shine your light. Elevate past—and reject—any culture of low vibrational energy and ratchetness. Don't take fear, defeat or anger—on or in. The system is doing what they've been created to do. Are you? Am I? Are we—collectively? Let's get to work. No more drifting through life without your higher-self in complete control of your mind. Awaken—fully. Activate—now. Put your frustrations or concerns into your work. Don't lose sight. There is still—a higher plan. Let's ride this 4 year energetic-wave like the spiritual gangsters that we are. This will all be the past soon. Let's get to work and stay dedicated, consistent and diligent. Again, this will all be the past soon. We have preparing and work to do. Toxic energy is so not a game. Toxic energy and low vibrations are being collectively acted out on the world stage. Covertly operating through the unconscious weak spots and blind spots in the human psyche; making people oblivious to their own madness, causing and influencing them to act against–their–own–best–interests and higher-good, as if under a spell and unconsciously possessed. This means that they are actually nourishing the lower vibrational energy with their lifestyle, choices, energy and habits, which is unconsciously giving the lower-energy the very power and fuel it needs—for repeating and recreating endless drama, suffering and destruction, in more and more amplified forms on a national and world stage. So what do we do? We take away its autonomy and power over us while at the same time empowering ourselves. By recognizing how this energetic/spiritual virus or parasite of the mind—operates through our unawareness is the beginning of the cure. Knowledge is power. Applied knowledge is—freedom. Our shared future will be decided primarily by the changes that take place in the psyche of humanity, starting with each of us— vibrationally. In closing and most importantly, the greatest protection against becoming affected or possessed by this lower-energy is to be in touch with our higher vibrational-self. We have to call our energy and power back. Being in touch with our higher-self and true nature acts as a sacred amulet, shielding and protecting us from the attempted effects. We defeat evil not by fighting against it (in which case, by playing its game, we’ve already lost) but by getting in touch with the part of us that is invulnerable to its effects— our higher vibrational-self. Will this defeat and destroy us? Or will it awaken us more and more? Everything depends upon our recognizing what is being revealed to us and our stepping out of the unconscious influence of low vibrational/negative/toxic/evil/distraction energy (or whatever name you relate to it as) that is and has been seeking power over each of our lives energetically and/or spiritually, and step into our wholeness, our personal power, our higher self and vibrate higher and higher daily. Stay woke my friends—let's get to work.

Encouragement during the early years is crucial because beginners are still figuring out whether they want to commit or cut bait. Accordingly, Bloom and his research team found that the best mentors at this stage were especially warm ans supportive: 'perhaps the major quality of these teachers was that they made the initial learning very pleasant and rewarding. much of the introduction to the field was as playful activity, and the learning at the beginning of this stage was like a game'. A degree of autonomy during the early years is also important. Longitudinal studies tracking learners confirm that overbearing parents and teachers erode intrinsic motivation. Kids whose parents let them make their own choices about what they like are more likely to develop interests later identified as a passion.

Many adult children of EI parents suffer from intense, irrational fears about being judged and punished. These fears of punitive judgment can come from EI parents, older siblings, teachers, or any authority figure. When this childhood fear resurfaces, it feels terrifying, as if there were no hope and your downfall were imminent. When these fears of punishment get triggered, you start thinking things like, This will be the end of me. It’s never going to get better. I’m totally screwed.

In their writing on education, Deci and Ryan proceed from the principle that humans are natural learners and children are born creative and curious, “intrinsically motivated for the types of behaviors that foster learning and development.” This idea is complicated, however, by the fact that part of learning anything, be it painting or programming or eighth-grade algebra, involves a lot of repetitive practice, and repetitive practice is usually pretty boring. Deci and Ryan acknowledge that many of the tasks that teachers ask students to complete each day are not inherently fun or satisfying; it is the rare student who feels a deep sense of intrinsic motivation when memorizing her multiplication tables. It is at these moments that extrinsic motivation becomes important: when behaviors must be performed not for the inherent satisfaction of completing them, but for some separate outcome. Deci and Ryan say that when students can be encouraged to internalize those extrinsic motivations, the motivations become increasingly powerful. This is where the psychologists return to their three basic human needs: autonomy, competence, and relatedness. When teachers are able to create an environment that promotes those three feelings, they say, students exhibit much higher levels of motivation. And how does a teacher create that kind of environment? Students experience autonomy in the classroom, Deci and Ryan explain, when their teachers “maximize a sense of choice and volitional engagement” while minimizing students’ feelings of coercion and control. Students feel competent, they say, when their teachers give them tasks that they can succeed at but that aren’t too easy — challenges just a bit beyond their current abilities. And they feel a sense of relatedness when they perceive that their teachers like and value and respect them.

And here are some thoughts for parents. If you’re lucky enough to have control over where your child goes to school, whether by scouting out a magnet school, moving to a neighborhood whose public schools you like, or sending your kids to private or parochial school, you can look for a school that prizes independent interests and emphasizes autonomy conducts group activities in moderation and in small, carefully managed groups values kindness, caring, empathy, good citizenship insists on orderly classrooms and hallways is organized into small, quiet classes chooses teachers who seem to understand the shy/serious/introverted/sensitive temperament focuses its academic/athletic/extracurricular activities on subjects that are particularly interesting to your child strongly enforces an anti-bullying program emphasizes a tolerant, down-to-earth culture attracts like-minded peers, for example intellectual kids, or artistic or athletic ones, depending on your child’s preference

and self-responsibility can only occur where the child is surrounded with moral behavior and allowed to grow her own understanding of the ideals of integrity, interdependence and interconnectedness. He put it this way, “Moral autonomy appears when the mind regards as necessary an ideal that is independent of all external pressure.” But this moral autonomy is not supported in our topsy-turvy school and family systems where respect for authority actually means fear of authority. Where there is fear there cannot be respect. Although a child may envy or fear the power a parent or teacher wields over them, their feelings do not include the sacred, essential quality of loving reverence which makes respect, respect. It is akin to the battered dependent wife saying she loves and respects her abuser, when her daily experience is fear. Jerry Jampolsky, author and founder of the Center for Attitudinal Healing, reminds us that it is fear, not hate, that is love’s opposite. If, however, a truly educational atmosphere is created based on respect for autonomy instead of intimidating indoctrination, children can then deeply understand that rules are needed to maintain the social order, and do not have to be obeyed out of a blind acquiescence to authority, but are followed on the bases of mutual agreement. At the same time, the needs of the individual are protected and respected. Nice “Guise”and Gals It is at this Stage Six—Universal Ethical

In families in which parents are overbearing, rigid, and strict, children grow up with fear and anxiety. The threat of guilt, punishment, the withdrawal of love and approval, and, in some cases, abandonment, force children to suppress their own needs to try things out and to make their own mistakes. Instead, they are left with constant doubts about themselves, insecurities, and unwillingness to trust their own feelings. They feel they have no choice and as we have shown, for many, they incorporate the standards and values of their parents and become little parental copies. They follow the prescribed behavior suppressing their individuality and their own creative potentials. After all, criticism is the enemy of creativity. It is a long, hard road away from such repressive and repetitive behavior. The problem is that many of us obtain more gains out of main- taining the status quo than out of changing. We know, we feel, we want to change. We don’t like the way things are, but the prospect of upsetting the stable and the familiar is too frightening. We ob- tain “secondary gains” to our pain and we cannot risk giving them up. I am reminded of a conference I attended on hypnosis. An el- derly couple was presented. The woman walked with a walker and her husband of many years held her arm as she walked. There was nothing physically wrong with her legs or her body to explain her in- ability to walk. The teacher, an experienced expert in psychiatry and hypnosis, attempted to hypnotize her. She entered a trance state and he offered his suggestions that she would be able to walk. But to no avail. When she emerged from the trance, she still could not, would not, walk. The explanation was that there were too many gains to be had by having her husband cater to her, take care of her, do her bidding. Many people use infirmities to perpetuate relationships even at the expense of freedom and autonomy. Satisfactions are derived by being limited and crippled physically or psychologically. This is often one of the greatest deterrents to progress in psychotherapy. It is unconscious, but more gratification is derived by perpetuating this state of affairs than by giving them up. Beatrice, for all of her unhappiness, was fearful of relinquishing her place in the family. She felt needed, and she felt threatened by the thought of achieving anything 30 The Self-Sabotage Cycle that would have contributed to a greater sense of independence and self. The risks were too great, the loss of the known and familiar was too frightening. Residing in all of us is a child who wants to experiment with the new and the different, a child who has a healthy curiosity about the world around him, who wants to learn and to create. In all of us are needs for security, certainty, and stability. Ideally, there develops a balance between the two types of needs. The base of security is present and serves as a foundation which allows the exploration of new ideas and new learning and experimenting. But all too often, the security and dependency needs outweigh the freedom to explore and we stifle, even snuff out, the creative urges, the fantasy, the child in us. We seek the sources that fill our dependency and security needs at the expense of the curious, imaginative child. There are those who take too many risks, who take too many chances and lose, to the detriment of all concerned. But there are others who are risk-averse and do little with their talents and abilities for fear of having to change their view of themselves as being the child, the dependent one, the protected one. Autonomy, independence, success are scary because they mean we can no longer justify our needs to be protected. Success to these people does not breed success. Suc- cess breeds more work, more dependence, more reason to give up the rationales for moving on, away from, and exploring the new and the different.

Resources for Understanding Literature for Middle Grades and Teens The Adolescent Brain: Reaching for Autonomy by Robert Sylvester Born Digital: Understanding the First Generation of Digital Natives by John Palfrey The Literature Teacher's Book of Lists by Judith Strouf The Primal Teen: What the New Discoveries About the Teenage Brain Tell Us About Our Kids by Barbara Strauch

They were divided into four categories that are described below along with examples of the motivational behaviours included within each. 1     Teacher discourse: arousing curiosity or attention, promoting autonomy, stating communicative purpose/utility of activity 2     Participation structure: group work/pair work 3     Activity design: individual competition, team competition, intellectual challenge, tangible task product 4     Encouraging positive retrospective self-evaluation and activity design: effective praise, elicitation of self/peer correction session, class applause. In each lesson, the learners’ motivation was measured in terms of their level of engagement. The proportion of students who paid attention, who actively participated, and who eagerly volunteered during activities was calculated. A three-level scale was used to measure engagement in each observed lesson: very low (a few students), low (one third to two thirds of the students) and high (more than two thirds of the students). Learners also completed a questionnaire about their motivation levels specifically related to their EFL class. The researchers found significant positive correlations between the teachers’ motivational practices, the learners’ engagement behaviours, and the learners’ self-reports on the questionnaire. The researchers acknowledge that correlation results do not indicate cause–effect relationships. Nevertheless, the findings are important because this is the first study to provide ‘any empirical evidence concerning the concrete, classroom-specific impact of language teachers’ motivational strategies’ (Guilloteaux and Dörnyei 2008: 72).

In another study, which I found during my own research, giving autonomy to middle school teachers in a struggling school district not only increased the rate at which the teachers were promoted, but also, to the surprise of the researchers, reversed the downward performance trend of their students.2

Andreas Schleicher, who runs the Programme for International Student Assessment exams, a global evaluation of scholastic performance, observed that those scoring highest are Asian countries that have “ownership cultures—a high degree of professional autonomy for teachers … where teachers get to participate in shaping standards and curriculum and have ample time for continuous professional development.

Oh, he’d taken plenty. Some things he’d taken in great handfuls. Giant pieces. My dreams of being a teacher. My education. My autonomy. And some I’d simply handed him, learning quickly that my dignity meant more to him than it did to me. And now I owned this house. Everything that had been his. Everything he’d taken from me, I had a chance to get back. How? How does someone do that? Like, in what drawer would I find my ambition? My confidence? Was my faith on a bookshelf in his office? I imagined finding those things, putting them on like jewelry. Too-big rings that would fall off my fingers. Who the fuck am I anymore?

The open teacher, like a good therapist, establishes rapport and resonance, sensing unspoken needs, conflicts, hopes, and fears. Respecting the learner's autonomy, the teacher spends more time helping to articulate the urgent questions than demanding right answers.

Teachers, before you dole out yet another time-consuming assignment, run it through this Type I homework test by asking yourself three questions: • Am I offering students any autonomy over how and when to do this work? • Does this assignment promote mastery by offering a novel, engaging task (as opposed to rote reformulation of something already covered in class)? • Do my students understand the purpose of this assignment? That is, can they see how doing this additional activity at home contributes to the larger enterprise in which the class is engaged? If the answer to any of these questions is no, can you refashion the assignment? And parents, are you looking at homework assignments every so often to see whether they promote compliance or engagement? Let’s not waste our kids’ time on meaningless exercises. With a little thought and effort, we can turn homework into homelearning

They believe that every human is an individual, whose worth does not depend on what other people think of him or her. Each of us has within ourselves a brilliant ray of light that gives value and meaning to our lives. In modern Western schools teachers and parents tell children that if their classmates make fun of them, they should ignore it. Only they themselves, not others, know their true worth. In modern architecture, this myth leaps out of the imagination to take shape in stone and mortar. The ideal modern house is divided into many small rooms so that each child can have a private space, hidden from view, providing for maximum autonomy. This private room almost invariably has a door, and in some households it may be accepted practice for the child to close, and perhaps lock, the door. Even parents may be forbidden to enter without knocking and asking permission. The room is usually decorated as the child sees fit, with rock-star posters on the wall and dirty socks on the floor. Somebody growing up in such a space cannot help but imagine himself ‘an individual’, his true worth emanating from within rather than from without.

In the early grades, being in positive classroom climates with friendly, considerate teachers is linked to greater self-regulation, less disruptive behavior, and higher teacher-rated social competence among elementary and middle school students. Middle school teachers whose classrooms support increasing student autonomy and competence can build personal relationships in which students feel known, valued, and respected. Gains in middle grade achievement and reduced levels of disruptive behavior are evidence in classrooms in which expectations are clear, time is used well and productively, and teachers respond effectively to variations in students’ motivation and focus. Similarly, strong, positive, and cooperative relationships with teachers increase high school students’ likelihood of graduating.

Deci and Ryan identified three key human needs—competence, autonomy, and relatedness or personal connection. Students feel a sense of relatedness when they perceive that their teachers like, value, and respect them. They feel competent when they work at challenging tasks (Tough, 2013, pp. 74-5). These three feelings are far more effective motivators for students than “a deskful of gold stars and blue ribbons.” Deci and Ryan recognize that throughout the day, teachers convey to their students “deep messages about belonging, connection, ability, and opportunity” (quoted by Tough, 2013).

As a society, we pursue happiness and become measurably less happy over time. We privilege autonomy, and end up bound by rules to which we never assented, and more spied on than any people since the beginning of time. We pursue leisure through technology, and discover that the average working day is longer than ever, and that we have less time than we had before. The means to our ends are ever more available, while we have less sense of what our ends should be, or whether there is purpose in anything at all. Economists carefully model and monitor the financial markets in order to avoid any future crash: they promptly crash. We are so eager that all scientific research result in ‘positive findings’ that it has become progressively less adventurous and more predictable, and therefore discovers less and less that is a truly significant advance in scientific thinking. We grossly misconceive the nature of study in the humanities as utilitarian, in order to get value for money, and thus render it pointless and, in this form, certainly a waste of resource. We ‘improve’ education by dictating curricula and focussing on exam results to the point where free-thinking, arguably an overarching goal of true education, is discouraged; in our universities many students are, in any case, so frightened that the truth might turn out not to conform to their theoretical model that they demand to be protected from discussions that threaten to examine the model critically; and their teachers, who should know better, in a serious dereliction of duty, collude. We over-sanitise and cause vulnerability to infection; we over-use antibiotics, leading to super-bacteria that no antibiotic can kill; we make drugs illegal to protect society, and, while failing comprehensively to control the use of drugs, create a fertile field for crime; we protect children in such a way that they cannot cope with – let alone relish – uncertainty or risk, and are rendered vulnerable. The left hemisphere’s motivation is control; and its means of achieving it alarmingly linear, as though it could see only one of the arrows in a vastly complex network of interactions

It always felt good to see Sister Charlotte, a retired teacher who would occasionally substitute in our class. She always allowed us private reading time, which we appreciated. One day in class, she asked me about my library book, Chaim Potok’s The Chosen. I told her that the story dealt with family problems and a son who had a tough choice to make, one that would be good for him but would displease his father. “Ah, universal theme,” said Sister. “Offspring challenging parents’ old ways. It’s normal. It’s natural. It’s called evolution.” “What about Christ?” I asked. “He obeyed His father’s wishes.” “Ah,” replied Sister, unperturbed. “Yes, I see what you mean.” “What do you think, Sister?” I sensed my questions were welcome, that Sister liked me. “Well, I answered that question one way when I entered this Order at sixteen years old. Today, I’d respond differently.” “How, Sister?” “Well, I think I’d jump right into my own creative life, yes, dive right in, no hesitation. I hope you do that, Eleanor. All our answers lie there but each of us must earn her own autonomy, so I’ll say no more.

A degree of autonomy during the early years is also important. Longitudinal studies tracking learners confirm that overbearing parents and teachers erode intrinsic motivation. Kids whose parents let them make their own choices about what they like are more likely to develop interests later identified as a passion. So, while my dad in Shanghai in 1950 didn’t think twice about his father assigning him a career path, most young people today would find it difficult to fully “own” interests decided without their input.

A teacher who allows a child time and support to rethink and revise gives a child autonomy and the ability to trust themselves to be problem solvers, even if their path to success is different than everyone else’s.

According to Bloomfield (2006), diminished teacher autonomy has resulted from a political perception that teachers should not be viewed as professionals whose opinion should be valued, but as underperforming obstacles to change. Indeed, Thrupp (2009) observes that teachers and teaching quality have been positioned as a ‘handy scapegoat’ in schooling reform agendas in which associated rhetoric promoted by politicians, media, commercial interests and much of popular culture seems to suggest that if only there were better teachers in schools, there would be greater improvements in student outcomes regardless of socioeconomic disadvantage.

The more confident teachers are in their own authority, the more able they will be to let go of it a little so others can have autonomy and authority as well. In

Authoritarian approaches may instil fear and obedience in the short term, but they erode trust and autonomy, essential elements of a healthy teacher-student relationship.

Effective teaching in the core phase requires a shift – students take the lead, actively engaging with the learning process. The teacher becomes a guide, fostering autonomy and motivating students to achieve their educational goals.