Roles of teachers

Of the teachers that we have become acquainted with in class through readings and movies, many play a similar roles in the lives of their students. The one that stands out as being very different from the others is Sister MPH. Sister MPH’s role in the life of Audre Lorde was strictly that of disciplinarian. She ruled the class with a heavy hand and I would say did very little educating of her pupils, rather the shame that she forced on them was what taught them. One example is her dividing the kids up into two groups, the brownies and fairies; the faries were good and the brownies were bad. She also has the Lorde sit in the back of the room wearing a dunce cap to further shame her because she had broken her glasses. In my experience, the learning that comes from shame is not long lasting, it is only the shame that stays. 

Mr. Escalante, Mr. MacFarland and Ms. Watson on the other hand played the roles of mentor, friend, ally and therapist with a dappling of disciplinarian in their students lives. All of these teachers taught because they had a strong desire to do so; it was a choice that they made. They each wanted to make a difference in their students lives and they did that by holding the bar high, challenging them to do more than they thought was possible, caring deeply for each of their students, and having high standards of themselves.