Teachers Attitudes Chapter 6

On page 174 of Chapter 6, it describes 'The Teacher's Attitude Toward Children." The teachers attitude makes a big difference in the atmosphere of a classroom. If the teacher is strict and stern and only teaches out of the book, doesn't associate with the children or have any such art work or anything of artistic meaning around the classroom, the students may have a negative outcome to the teachers method of teaching. If a teacher is communicative, respectful, joyful to be around and associates them self with the students, he/she may get a better outcome from the students themselves. In the book it gave four specific incidences where a teachers attitude could directly affect her students ability to positively communicate or learn from their methods: "A strong dislike for particular pupils and obvious fondness for others, Biases toward or against particular ethnic groups, A bias toward certain kinds of student behavior, such as docility or inquisitiveness and An uneasiness in working with children who have disabilities. If someone is not prepared to take on the role and responsibility of a teacher than one should not venture into that venue unprepared for what is ahead of them. Every single person no matter their career has good days and bad days, it is very much up to that individual how they will react and spread their mood on the people around them. Having a career such as a teacher, means you have to be extra careful and extra responsible for how you react and share your feelings with your students.
Historically, Americans have held ambivalent attitudes
toward gifted students and gifted education
(Bégin & Gagné, 1994a). The tension between excellence
and equity has a long history in the American
educational system (Gallagher, 1994). Although
Americans prize achievement and creative productivity,
they despise making distinctions between superiority
and inferiority in academic, political, or social
domains. For this reason, Americans are uncomfortable
discussing individual differences in intelligence or
academic ability (Gallagher). Fears of elitism cause
many educators to view gifted education as involving
special privileges for the “already advantaged.” The
pendulum of public opinion sways between the quest
for excellence and the need for equity. In this era of
“No Child Left Behind,” concerns about equity of
instruction and achievement appear to override concerns
about “raising the academic bar.” The effects of
this zeitgeist on regular education teachers’ attitudes
toward the gifted are unknown.
Given this ambivalence toward gifted students and
gifted education, “most attitude surveys confirm quite
eloquently the lack of consensus about the need for, or
priority of, special education services for gifted and talented
children” (Bégin & Gagné, 1994a, p. 161). In the
field of gifted education, assessing, predicting, and perhaps
changing the attitudes of general education
teachers represents an important endeavor. Without the
support of regular education teachers and administrators,
gifted educators are virtually powerless to institute
the curricular and instructional changes necessary to
challenge and stimulate the nation’s gifted students.
http://www.gifted.uconn.edu/Siegle/Publications/GCQFactorsPredict.pdf
What Predicts Teachers’ Attitudes Toward
the Gifted?
D. Betsy McCoach
Del Siegle
University of Connecticut