A Good Teacher
In the story, ‘Gryphon’ by Baxter, there exists an unusual character, a new substitute teacher in the rural society in Michigan. The students engage with the rare woman who, despite being strange, offers exciting presentations. Miss Ferenczi is an unprecedented teacher adapting in the appealing environment due to her prowess in breaking the teaching methodology boundaries, that is, her presentation on new items never covered in textbooks, and she assists the students in exploring new things. A good teacher should portray excellent communication, listening, collaborative, room for adapting change, engagement, show empathy and patience, real-world value learning, and share their past best experiences features with the students. The article will explore how the teachers should cultivate creative, artistic, and critical thinking capabilities to the students. Through, Miss Ferenczi, she transforms students into active members in the classroom, thus eliminating rote learning ineffectiveness.
Miss Ferenzi engages with students using her peculiar teaching methods to create exciting lessons. In the classroom, she tells the class that, “six times eleven could be sixty-eight” (Baxter “Gryphon,” 279) Despite her accepting the typical mathematical answer, she provides an alternative view and the solution to the math problem because of its appealing nature. When Tommy could not spell the term “balcony,” she whispers to him that the word is unappealing and no need for using words that a person does not like them. Therefore, the engaging style of Miss Ferenczi makes the student (both giving wrong answers and spellings to recap the right answers without feeling the shame of their wrong replies. The act makes the students have education security by being guided gently in the knowledge acquisition process. She exceptionally does not like the rules, schedules, and item resources available in textbooks without integrating real-world perspectives. When telling the students to open books, she stares at diverse objects via the window (Baxter “Gryphon,” 278). More so, she stays close with her students by even not participating in lunch with fellow teachers. Therefore, she gains comfortability through her exceptional teaching formula without following rules or any inelastic models or boundaries, which makes the students less distracted and eliminating boredom from the old teaching practices.
The new teacher appears in the class more surprising, matching her unusual stories. The students do not know of Antipode stone makes people blind or of the Hope diamond, or a plant that eats meat. Miss Ferenzi shares her past experiences and practices effectively with the students. The textbooks only provide boring integers and dehydrated tiresome texts. Therefore, Miss Ferenzi introduces her stories to the kids showcasing factual and evidence data. Therefore, whether original, mythical, or false stories, the database provided covers outside the schoolbook parameters (Baxter “Gryphon,” 279). They revolve around the historical, social, cultural, and scientific lessons of the real world that the students lack their knowledge. She gives the students information from the textbooks and comprehensive comprehension of universe details. The exceptional and broader incorporation of issues in diverse disciplines reveals a brand new world to the students (Baxter “Gryphon,” 280).
Miss Ferenczi had intense empathy and patience with the students. The students developed habits, like blowing nose into textbook papers when no teacher around the vicinity, sit in class observing the teacher’s actions, and engaging in extracurricular activities. Therefore, she had exciting appeals to the students that, “no even one went to the bathroom” (Baxter “Gryphon,” 284). The students had significant misconduct behaviors with their former teacher, Mr. Hibler, by whispering and making noise in class. The introduction of exciting lectures made them corporate and listened to the lesson teaching. Therefore, Miss Ferenczi had a strong collaborative bond with the students. They participate in the half-bird and half-lion monster stories to establish the validity of information engulfed in them. Due to the excitement of the students, they explore the dictionary in discovering more information about a given myth (Baxter “Gryphon,” 285). Therefore, Miss Ferenczi forms information hunger to the students for them to learn new things ( a norm hardly followed by teachers). Due to her exceptional appearance, students change their learning perspectives. She brings a unique view of life, an unusual pathway of lecturer presentation, that makes people connected to attending the classrooms.
Miss Ferenczi introduces creativity among the students. The term substitute teacher depicts the transformation in the school. In a school attended by students like Tommy, it lacks transformational learning styles, teaching strategies, instructional techniques, and academic standards. The new appearance of Miss Ferenczi makes her adapt to the school environment. She even continues to giving positive insights to the students. For example, she tells Tommy, “You may stare with me” (Baxter “Gryphon,” 277) The concept of permitting the students to look at her rather than staring creates a collaborative environment. The extra-ordinary resemblance of her with Pinocchio, who had reality ambitions, matches her extra-ordinary teaching methods. She introduces the concept of tarot to enhance people’s creativity. The idea of the tarot card gives the students an intense motivation for their daily encounter challenges (Baxter “Gryphon,” 281). Despite facing fate in life, students should develop mechanisms of curbing adverse effects through the decision-making process. The methods make the students have incredible attentive measures, and she promotes excellent communication with the students. She gives the students life guidelines of not being selective in life, by eating particular kinds of food and despising others.
Miss Ferenczi utilizes the satirical exaggeration technique in enlarging and explaining situations beyond typical expectations. She typically stretches the lesson plans to accommodate the student’s eagerness to learn. During the teaching, “There was not a sound in the classroom, except for Miss Ferenczi’s voice, and Donna DeShano’s coughing” (Baxter “Gryphon,” 286). She has a diverse knowledge of the artistic use to make the teaching concepts applicable in an innovative pathway. She uses her practical experiences in instilling culture to the students. For instance, she engages the students in discussing the pyramid’s ideas with a story of her adventure in Cairo (Baxter “Gryphon,” 282). She explains the Egyptians exploration nature, and the emperor encounters a “Gryphon.” The factual concepts lead to positive change with the students. Tommy develops an interest in the teaching lessons by confronting extensive knowledge from Miss Ferenczi. Miss Ferenzi believes in great imaginative and individualistic thinking ideas and embraces innovative dreams concepts (Baxter “Gryphon,” 284).
Despite his teaching contract termination, she ensured collaborative and secrecy nature with the students. The private to information and self-believe leads to better lives rather than theoretical class lessons. When Wayne goes to Mr. Fegre for further elaboration of Ferenczi teaching behavior, students develop upset attitudes. The students observe her driving off after her firing, creating disputes among the students. Due to betrayal, they state, punching one another due to losing an exceptional teacher. Without the presence of a substitute teacher, the students were combined and participated in learning about the insect’s characteristics. The primary concept of Mrs. Mantei’s teaching was only for testing exams, whereby the students memorized the contents (Baxter “Gryphon,” 288). The theoretical and empirical teaching practices have diverse creativity notion. The students lacked proper knowledge acquisition as compared to Miss Ferenczi’s teaching prowess. She uses the postmodernist approaches of teaching eliminates the education problems, that is, cramming, rote learning, and testing that act as educational practices, which does not ignite imaginations (Baxter “Gryphon,” 287). The teaching method develops enthusiasm as well as a passion among the students, and that testing should not determine the student’s life outcomes. Therefore, Miss Ferenczi serves as a change catalyst and education transformational representative.
The concept of having collaborative learning practices exposes the students to the presentation of information in a postmodernist approach, thus, being imaginative and developing creative ideas. Miss Ferenczi is an excellent teacher who engages the students in real-world realities and experiences. The sharing of life experience tales enables the students to undertake research developments by exploring the information gaps for the acquisition of the factual database. She has great empathy and patience with the students by encouraging them in their mistakes and providing choices to them. Miss Ferenczi engages with the students in playing the tarot cards to gives the students an intense motivation for their daily encounter challenges. Despite facing fate in life, students should develop mechanisms of curbing adverse effects through the decision-making process. The teacher provides moral support to the students and improves learning enthusiasm and passion. Excellent integral communication skills make the students shift from their misconducts and listen effectively to the teachings, and she eliminates the educational practices, that is, memorization, testing, and rote learning.
Work Cited
Baxter, Charles. Gryphon. 1985. Rpt . in Combat Literature Reading Reacting Writing. By Kirszner and Mandell. 6th Ed. 2007, 277-288