Dispositions in General

I don't believe dispositions can be taught in the literal sense. They can be brought out of people through experience, relating ideas and other methods. I do believe that things such as humility, inventiveness, passion and those such things can easily be talked about and realized but they cannot be put into a box that is teaching right now. The whole system of teaching these things is very hard to standardize and put into a box. I think the whole dispositional blog is a great start in the whole discussion about these dispositions but I do not; however, believe that it is the answer. I believe the true answer to these dispositions lies with either present day teachers and or the colleagues that students currently have. I believe these to be the best two resources at our disposal to date. I think if there was a constant open discussion board between these sets of people that it would do more than anything for the educational dispositions of students.

Resilience

There is no way to prepare teachers for what they are about to experience. Teaching is a stress of it's own. You can describe it or prepare them on how to avoid unneeded stress but there is no way to teach them how to prepare for it. Each person has their own ways of dealing with stress and should employ them in their fight against teacher's stress. One way that could help them would be as I said teaching ways to avoid unnecessary stress. Things like showing them how to use tests that kids can grade themselves, showing them how to not talk down to kids but talk to them like equals, learning how to deal with 'stupid questions,' how to deal with special needs kids, etc. These would help the teachers in the best way on how to stop stress before it occurred.

Humility

I have a long history involving this very subject. When I was younger I was always the cocky little guy that no person could argue with because I literally was always right or did things in the right way. This continued throughout my elementary years until I reached the junior high level. When this happened I hit a great wall. I was literally at the bottom of the totem poll and to top it off I had next to no friends. I believe this was all because of my complete lack of humility. My dad is one of my greatest role models and he always said, 'he who builds the highest pedestal for himself has the furthest to fall.' Because of this simple saying I have tried as hard as I can to stay humble about everything in this world. In my mind there is always bound to be someone better than myself in every way shape and form of my being. Therefore I should always take any advice I can find and hopefully apply it to my life. I should especially do this if I know that person is a lot better than me at something. I have been wrong quite often but I always take criticism and use it for making myself better be it constructive or destructive criticism.

I think the best way for teachers to balance between being humble and being confident in what they know is to always recognize that you could be wrong. However, you should present anything you presently hold as fact without a doubt. I believe that anyone who is unwilling to take advice or take into consideration that they are wrong are setting themselves up for not ever learning and for being passed by in our technological age.