I have found it really interesting to read other responses to what the role of a teacher is. Many of us are teachers and yet we view what we do in some really different was. I commented on a couple of posts, but decided to make this one little post before I go work around the house.
The word I found as kind of a hot button word was "facilitator". It seems to either be a word we want to label ourselves as a teacher or that we feel is far to inadequate to sum up all we do as teachers. This was really interesting to me. I thought facilitator was a good label to try and say what officially do as a teacher. It seems to me to include motivator, encourager, helper, guide, mentor, and many other words I could have used to label myself as a teacher. I think in the end it isn't that some people think the word is great or poor as a label for teachers. It seems to be that peoples idea of what all the work means to them is very different. For instance I think facilitator includes the idea of encouraging and motivating, but others may not. This is more of a semantic difference perhaps then actually a philosophical difference. I just thought it was interesting and wanted to see if anyone else got that or not while reading.
Facilator is a good label for a teacher. A teacher has many roles and that word sums up a lot of them, like you mentioned. I am probably one that mentioned being a facilator in my post. While writing the post it was hard to come up with a word that would describe the jobs that you must endure as a teacher. I mean the list can go on and on. But this word just stood out for some reason.
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