Who is an educator?

Anyone who is helping another person learn is an educator. Nurses, medical doctors, classroom teachers, parents, special educators, speech pathologists, college professors, tutors, chefs, lawyers, electricians, etc. are all examples of educators. Nurses, for example, educate other nurses as well as patients on medications, compliance issues, etc. Pediatricians educate guardians about ear infections, for example. Electricians have a hierarchy of learning that scaffolds individuals into the profession. If all of these people help others learn, then what is the difference between a person who goes to college for a degree in education and these other people who educate in their home or in their workplace? In my thinking, the difference is that an education degree or credential “should” be about “how” to help others learn. In other words, the person who goes to college to become a preschool, primary, elementary, secondary educator should have the best tools about how to educate others. This means that in addition to learning methods, they also learn why methods work or don’t work, why materials have language levels so as to know how to adjust for individual needs, they understand why individuals may or may not be able to access materials, they have tools to evaluate the cognitive language levels of methods, an understanding of when methods or curricular materials are not at the best cognitive, social, language levels, etc. In other words, people who emphasize education as their career “should” know something about learning. Specifically, educators would benefit by knowing how learning is neuro-biological as well as socio-cognitive in nature. This means that they would have courses or professional learning opportunities about 1) how the nature of the relationship between the mind and the brain for learning affects education, 2) how the relationship between language acquisition and literacy works at any age, 3) how to provide pro-social counsel to their students as well as others such as parents, 4) how their own background affects who they are as an educator which in turn affects their beliefs about how to help others learn.

Stay tuned for the next blog about definitions of learning, language, and literacy.