The Essence Of Teaching
Featuring Life Altering Elements
by
Margaret Robertson
 

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$42.95 plus shipping charges
($ 9.00 to anywhere between B.C. and Manitoba).
Single orders must be prepaid.

Ordering information: Contact the author at:
Margaret Robertson B.Ed.       marghr@telus.net   

Ph. (250) 832 8482

Mailing address: P.O. Box 1255
Salmon Arm BC   V1E 4P4

 

  

 
    ISBN 0-9738406-8-4                           Softcover                          572 pages
   
 
  About the Author
Margaret Helen Robertson (nee Timmons) was born on 12 December 1925 in the pioneer village of Creston, British Columbia, Canada. She spent her childhood living in a log cabin for which she cut shakes and chinked with moss. She helped in her father’s silver, lead, zinc mine: timbering, hand steeling, forging, mucking, handling dynamite and sorting ore. She became very adept at cutting wood with a crosscut saw, fishing and hunting and in the use of fire­arms.
In her teens she drew a complete set of plans comparing the reciprocating engine to a circular engine for submission to Boeing Aircraft engineers. Since then she has drawn several architectural plans acceptable to contractors for house construction. Part of her life has encompassed stock and grain farming, driving tractor to hay, seed and summer-fallow; and part of it involved court battles to settle estate problems.
 

Margaret completed her professional education degree at the University of British Columbia in 1975. She emphasized studies in English, Remedial Reading, Psychology, ESL, Diagnostic Assessment, Psychometric Testing and is an excellent math teacher. She has forty-one years of teaching experience: twenty at elementary levels, four years as a district specialist, including English as a second lan­guage, and seventeen years as a Hospital/Homebound teacher teaching all subjects K-12, including organizing a Parent Support Group for families dealing with long-term and terminal illness. She was awarded a Hilroy Fellowship by the Canadian Teachers’ Federation for ‘an important educational innovation’ and later became a UBC Faculty Associate, writing and presenting the first course on Hospital/Homebound teaching in Canada.

She has served three years as president of two district teachers’ organizations and two years for the regional area of the Okanagan Valley. She spent six years as president of the H/H PSA (Provincial Specialist Association). For twelve years she served as President of the South Canoe Commu­nity Association and sixteen years as a community irrigation water manager.
 

Margaret is the mother of two boys and three foster children (one boy and two girls). She has five grandchildren and four great-grandchildren which she loves with all her might.
After retirement, wanting to leave a legacy for her pro­fession, Margaret wrote a book titled The Essence of Teaching: Featuring Life Skills which became a reference for her UBC course. Since her UBC students were unanimous in urging that its contents become a required course of teacher-training she decided to seek publication.



Foreword
I am indeed honoured to have been asked to write this section for my friend and a professional colleague, Margaret Robertson, whom I have known for almost twenty years. What you hold in your hand is not merely a book of reading but a compilation of many years of experience, commit­ment and dedication to those students she has worked with for so many years. This is truly the Labour of Love; it needs to be handled with Tender Loving Care.
When I first met Margaret in 1982, I did not quite un­derstand her role as a teacher of students who were Hospital/Homebound. The best way for me to understand what she did in the school district was to engage her in a dialogue, and there were many of them. Through these extended discussions, not only did I become more aware of her role but of her philosophical orientation and belief about children in her care and the family dynamics result­ing from students who were Hospital/Homebound. The education community, in many cases, does not understand trauma and the upset it causes in the family environment.


Margaret can very well be regarded as a pioneer in the field of education for children who are either hospitalized or homebound for various reasons. In fact, one must understand that education, that is, school curriculum, is only a very small component of what the students and the family need most when students are unable to be in regular attendance in a school setting. Readers of this book must understand the countless number of challenges faced by such students and their families. The contents of this publication indeed go to ‘The Soul of Teaching’. Personally, I believe that this book is a must for all prospective teachers who graduate through our educational institutions and who intend to dedicate their lives to the teaching profession. As well, it would be a very appropriate publica­tion for all those who are involved in one way or another with the educational needs of all children as they go through their schooling.


I would like to commend and congratulate Margaret for this publication. It will certainly make a very significant contribution to the lives of Hospital/Homebound students and their families. As well, it should provide a much needed resource for the professional community who have to deal with the needs of these students and their families.


Dr S Lal Mattu
B.Sc. M.Ed. Ph.D.
Chartered Psychologist
Diploma in Early Childhood Services
Contents


 

  
 

Table of Contents

Introduction      17
I Challenging Intellectual Introspection to Access Life      25
II Affects/Effects of Illness      86
III Death and Dying   176
IV Choosing Life or Choosing Escape by Suicide   226
V Brain Dysfunctions Producing Behaviour Disorders   261
VI ‘Missing the Boat’: Phobia is a Culprit   282
VII Homosexuality   322
VIII Teen Pregnancy   342
IX Integration of Ill Students Between Home/ Hospital and School   386
X Informal Diagnostic Tools and Corrective Procedures   434
XI Text Summary   544
Appendix I Course Outline For Teaching University Students   548
Appendix II Professional Education Requirements   553
Appendix III Advantages of School Attendance   560
Bibliography   564
Index   570


 

  
Introduction
An effective teacher is made, not born. Like any enterprise, teaching requires preparation through study and practice. Teaching employs special skills, techniques, knowledge, understanding of humanity, and empathy with the inherent and cultural composition of Canadian society. Teachers need certain experiences and training to conceptualize the scope and reality of teaching. Teachers need knowledge of a variety of techniques and methodologies, of the ‘whole’ child and child development, and must be able to apply the effects of both environmental and intellectual factors to learning. Teaching requires objective, subjective and diagnostic assessment skills, as well as the ability to deter­mine the subjective skills of learning, and to be able to organize procedures systematically to effect them. Thus, teaching content becomes a tool to enhance the skills of learning. Teachers need to develop an inherent awareness of the need for change and how to apply knowledge gained to problem-solving and the development of life skills. Teachers need to develop skills and procedures to become confident, self-assured, and competent self and programme evaluators. Training promotes public confidence in teachers and lends credibility and a voice of authority to education.
Teaching requires generalized, specialized and practical skills and knowledge. It goes far beyond presentation of content. It must take into account personal interaction, attitudes towards individuals and the mosaic of communi­ties and countries. While all levels of teaching demand special qualifications, specific areas of specialization require a more profound concentration of competencies. However,
classroom teachers need a background in special education if for no other reason than to be able to participate in discussions with the various specialists and to understand and assist with implementation of new programmes. And because classroom teachers are responsible for the educa­tion of all children assigned to them, they need special skills and information to integrate the human aspects of life with learning. Classroom teachers are not in a position to avoid contact with children who have been exposed to life situations involving culture, ideologies, loss and death, accident, injury, illness, abuse, trauma, medication, mental and physical handicaps, behaviour disorders, affluent and disadvantaged homes, or outside agencies involving professionals of health care, the law and courts, social services, altruistic and religious organizations.
Teaching environments are unique, ranging through the total gamut of economic classes, philosophies, religions, races, and the problem-riddled families that make up society. Out of these environments come all kinds of children: not only those confined to homes or institutions with long-term physical illness, injury or disease, or who are pregnant or terminally ill, but those who suffer from emotional trauma (some diagnosed schizophrenic, manic depressive, or psychopathic) as well as delinquents and suspended students. Among these range all levels of intelligence from the mentally challenged to the gifted, students who are learning-disabled, and those needing remedial instruction — all with hopes and dreams, mostly of becoming happy, and successful and contributing citizens.
The purpose of this text is to present a programme of specialization in generalization. That is, topics related to the general nature and philosophies of life and death; effects of illness, disease, medication, and injury; particular family and social situations, including death and suicide, school phobia, homosexuality, neurological behaviour disorders, and teen pregnancy; learning diagnoses, evaluation, and corrective procedures; report writing and its implications, the School Act and Children’s Rights issues and so on. Teachers accumulating an in-depth understanding regard­ing the implications of such issues will be respected as general specialists. This book is specifically aimed at hospital and homebound teachers, but also presents information essential for classroom teachers (the pivotal programmers and integrators), resource teachers (learning assistant teachers), counsellors, administrators and all others associated with the education of children.
This is a text which every school needs and which every teacher should read. It should be maintained for reference in every school’s professional library. Annually, at least some aspects should be incorporated into teacher in-service activities. Since its contents are universal in nature, its application to the education of children is international. The information offered will be of pertinent benefit to university students in the Faculty of Education. Indeed, a study of its contents has been designed and taught as a credit course to both experienced and teacher trainees at the University of British Columbia. During its presentations, class participants have been unanimous in urging that the course should become required for an education degree. And now that the book is available for reference it should be designated a required text.
The topics and issues presented here are intended as suggestions for expansion and adaptation of presentations germane to teacher/student needs and professor choice, and to provide a challenge to individuals to enhance thinking proficiency and apply conclusions to problem-solving. Definitions, anecdotes, clarifications and explanations are offered as reference material to be incorporated into lectures and discussions, or to be drafted as support for conclusions drawn. For instructor use, a sample of a course
outline akin to those required by universities for course approval is included in Appendix I.
There is really no logical order to when events occur in real life and therefore, in teaching; so this text moves through the priority need for teachers to develop a philoso­phy about life and its relationship to death, to the circumstances that happen in the lives of students in the order of frequency that teachers are most often confronted by them (i.e., illness, death, brain dysfunctions and behav­iour, pregnancy, integration of ailing students - their symptoms, what to expect, and how to deal with them), to academic diagnostic and corrective procedures and ac­countability - which can’t really take place until there is an understanding of their components, all of which are inseparable from teaching. The topics in this book have been organized in what seems to be a logical order for teacher preparation. That is, from the need for teachers to set goals about their purpose for being, through the various handicaps suffered by students, culminating in information about procedures to diagnose and remediate deficiencies, and concluding with the procedures and responsibilities inherent in accountability. Since it is not uncommon for emergencies and/or situations to arise independent of other issues, teachers frequently are forced to concentrate on one particular topic. To reduce frustration and the time re­quired to search for and collate relevant information regarding specific topics, each section of this book is intended to be self-contained; thus, rather than making referrals to other sections some information has been briefly reviewed. In other words, for the sake of efficiency certain repetitions are intentional, albeit, expressed in different contexts with different references and nuances. For example, a synopsis of some of the references to grief in the suicide, illness, and homosexuality sections which parallel those discussed in the death and dying section are reviewed, simply for convenience. Since an in-depth study of each topic merits a book on its own, the intention is to offer only enough pertinent information to engender awareness and innovative application in order to prevent calamities and to encourage in-depth study when needed.
Chapter one, Challenging Intellectual Introspection to Access Life, deals with reasons for teachers to develop a philosophy of life and death, without which behaviours and direction falter, causing teachers to be inconsistent and leaving students in a confused and bewildered state. Definitions of terms have been included to facilitate understanding and acceptance of different points of view. Besides procedures to devise a philosophy, it deals with its relevance as applied to teaching.
Chapter Two, Affects/Effects of Illness, exposes the commonalities of all illnesses, and the effects that surgery, injury, treatment, terminal diagnosis, trauma, panic, and hospitalization have on students and families, along with an overview of types of treatment available, coping mecha­nisms, and solutions to problems. The role of teachers, the school and education is elaborated. A definition of drugs and a brief outline of some of their side effects emphasizes the need for cognizant reflection when deviations in behaviour and appearance occur.
Chapter Three, Death and Dying, lumps death, dying and suicide together. Death and dying emphasizes attitudes, the stages of grief, helping skills, and impact inventories, and offers suggestions for creating a curriculum on teaching about death in schools. Suicide comments emphasize knowledge about statistics, myths and facts, symptoms, contagion factors, and helping skills.
Chapter Four, Brain Dysfunction Producing Behaviour Disorders, combines brain dysfunctional behaviours and psychological abnormalities. Sections in this chapter take a brief look at behaviours related to organic brain disorders, including homosexuality, and school phobia. To aid comprehension of the complexity of brain functioning, some detail of brain formation, operation and integration are outlined. Definition of homosexuality, statistics, effects of homosexuality on students, and probable causes are reviewed. While psychological problems may be the result of environmental factors, they culminate in brain activity. Thus, Missing the Boat: Phobia is a Culprit reviews the symptoms which identify school phobia, their dysfunc­tional effect, and offers possible solutions.
Chapter Five, Teen Pregnancy, sets out to raise aware­ness of the high incidence of teen pregnancy. Some probable causes are presented along with its high cost to the teens and society, the health and range of problems en­countered by their children, and the effect on teen fathers -all of which have implications for teachers and education. Options open to teens regarding their babies and education are explored.
Chapter Six, Integration of ill Students Between Home, Hospital and School, explores the fact that students who re-enter school after a prolonged absence always incur some degree of trauma for which classroom teachers must be prepared. These masked and unfamiliar negative reactions require special integration procedures. The H/H teacher’s role, including qualifications, child advocacy responsibili­ties, dealing with parental concerns and exploitation of service require special knowledge and skills.
Chapter Seven, Informal Diagnostic Tools and Correc­tive Procedures, promotes diagnostic procedures and processes for accountability. Specifically, it issues com­mentary on art therapy, and some specific procedures for assessing students and materials, and for diagnosing and remediating particular learning deficits in communicating, listening, spelling, reading, and mathematics. Reviewed is the high cost of failure and adjudication of government exams. The text comes to a close by providing reasons for accountability and some explicit examples of how to present data.
Appendix I offers a sample of a university course out­line. Appendix II supports teacher-training course requirements. Appendix III contains a point form outline of advantages for students attending public school in place of home-schooling.

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