Amber whitt

Amber Whitt Dr. Schoer FYS 11 October, 2012 In a recent survey conducted by freshmen college students, at Converse College, a variety of results emerged. The survey was created on the media portrayal of teachers. During this survey, college students, college professors, family members, high school teachers, and high school students were questioned. The survey consisted of 15 questions regarding how the media manifests teaching. In one comparison, high school teachers and their students agreed for the majority of questions, however a few stood out to be different. The question that asked if “ teachers of your gender are easier to learn from” resulted in the teachers agreeing, but the students disagreeing. This result could be because when a teacher watches a movie based on another teacher, that teacher usually tries to be the “ super” teacher like in the movie, leaving the students confused, and frustrated. When comparing college professors and their students, the majority of questions asked received the same answer from both, giving the impression that once a student reaches college, they can actually be classified as an adult. The next skew in results found was between high school students and college students. Some of the question received the same answer from both groups, but most of them were extremely opposite. The question “ female teachers are perceived as more inspiring, ” college students disagreed, whereas high school students agree. This result could be because the majority of teachers in high school are female, where in college, that is not the case. The past two groups have shown differences, but one group actually agreed on almost all of the questions. The group of parents, and teachers had almost the same top answer on every question. The reason for this is because most teachers are parents, and some parents are teachers, therefore their opinions on media portrayal of teaching should result in this way. This survey, in my opinion portrayed what we have been talking about in class to perfection. The fact that every group of people surveyed gave a different answer proves that everybody does have an opinion of how teaching should be. The two groups I found to be most diversified in answering were between the two types of teachers, and the two types of students. This result makes sense because college professors have so much more to handle than high school teachers, just like college students are more mature than high school students. This survey could have also provided a better result if in every group, the same amount of people were questioned.