In life everyone has their good days and bad days. A university is a community of minds that is the product of the students, faculty and administrators that form a collective learning environment. An educator should try to become a mentor to his/her students and help them cope with a variety of distractors such as home, work, school, etc. In this sense the educator is in the business of being a mental health monitor. When any one component of the learning community is out of step then all suffer as a result. What helps is a smile, an encouraging word, a warm greeting. As educators we cannot solve all of life's problem but we can help to make the student's load a little lighter.
I think that is an inciteful question!
We absolutely are in more then one business. We have to be cost efficiency(financial) and quality providers, we need to be mental health counselors, coaches, triager for the learning style of the student, marketeers for our school, facilitators, judges, inspectors for authenticity. Oh, and I ;-) almost forgot, teacher.
Peter,
Thanks for this post. The best term I have seen for what we do is "edupreneur." We have to be educators, but we have to also treat our students as valued customers and our schools as businesses we want to succeed.
Fortunately, do the things that are right for our students are also the things that help us be successful financially in the long term.
Maybe the phrase "mental heath" was made in jest. No one should seriously use this anywhere as it basically implies that the students are "mental cases" and not fully functioning adults. Otherwise we'd better start calling them "clients" instead of "customers"!
Every field is delimited; better to hold the boundary clearly. For example, in coaching great pains are taken to say that it's not therapy in any sense at all. Some goes for education.
Yuhan,
I am not sure saying we are in the "mental health" business implies that our students are "mental cases." We do want to create an atmosphere in our schools that promotes positive thinking and positive self images.
Good comment!No jest intended! Mental health will have different significance to each individual and even between cultures. Sometimes we attach a stigma to something that demands awareness, compassion and consideration in the teaching professions. Students can behave in a healthy and sometimes an unhealthy manner. Depression and anxiety is often not recognized by students themselves, but it may be very obvious from the third person perspective. The student doesn't know what s/he doesn't know, that may interfere with their learning ability. (Student, get some help, and learning will be much easier, i.e. attention deficit)
I agree with you Jeffrey; I just think the choice of words is unfortunate. One would end up spending more time explaining what it is not saying. A phase such as "positive education" is much better.
Also I think we as educators are more accurately described as being in the "mentoring business".
Yuhan,
The "mentoring business" is a good way to put it. Thanks!
Peter,
Thank you for this post. One challenge for career schools is finding a way to provide counseling services for students that need it. Many smaller schools do not employ counselors.
One solution is to create relationships with local agencies. Some career schools contract with third party providers that will provide low or no cost services to students and graduates.
In education letting someone know what we do "exactly" is sometimes not so easy. It is much more than just teaching and the payoffs for our students can be much more than just taking classes. If we see ourselves in the human enrichment business we can find a plethora of ways to help, teach, and propell students into their "dreamed of" futures. By-the-way our personal rewards are also enriching to "we the people" of the college/institution.
Great post, Robert!
The real trick is to find faculty members who believe that effective education involves much more that just what goes on during formal lessons. Once we have a staff full of intelligent hearts, our student success and satisfaction rates really take off.
Teaching students how to develop and prepare for their future career is like handing them money for life.
Besides the instruction provided in regards to normal subject matter we as educators provide coaching and mentoring as it applies to needed life skills.
We as educators are in the "people business"
Good points, Glenn.
As teachers, we play a much more important role than just the dispensers of knowledge. We have to model, mentor and monitor in may more areas than just our subjects.
I agree. I didn't realize when I started that I would be playing so many parts. At first it was a challenge but now 7 years later it is very rewarding.
jasen,
Thanks for this post. Teaching is rewarding in a lot more ways than those who do not teach realize.
When I was an auto shop owner/technician, I felt at times I was also in the "mental health" business. I knew that my customers’ daily mental health sometimes hinged on their experience with me as the person who could make their grind easier by fixing their car. My current day customer is now the student. Their daily classroom experience is something both I and the student must agree to partnership in so that the outcomes benefit both of us. They learn something and stay engaged in school and I gain satisfaction that I had a part in it. I guess, like Glenn said, I'm now in the people business.
I agree that we are in more than one business.
You have to figure out what is going on in a students head so that you can better comunicate with him or her so that they will participate better in your class.
Thanks, Carlos!
What do you do to find out what is "going on in your students' heads?"
The way the question is worded I think not therefore is Disagree. Now if you mean do we have to take into account the mental aspect of our students then yes I agree.
Having been a professional soccer coach for 20 + years I most definitly coached the age and sex of my players. Girls will give you more with a lighter touch, boys you challenge them. There were other tings involved but you get the idea, I hope.
In as far as helping a student identify and change self-defeating attitudes and behaviors, an instructor can contribute to a student's "mental health."
