Saw today...A student reading BURR by Gore Vidal for pleasure(!); a kid with his head down on desk, either asleep or totally disengaged; the trouble with breaking into groups; an engaging writing prompt left up on the board (see bottom of page); a teacher taking time before class, during lunch, and offering to stay after class to give individual students help with essays; the disruptive power of a flying insect; an aide whose inaction in class contradicts his purported purpose; a reading and discussion on hermaphrodism and intersexuality that I didn't expect.
Today's texts..."Fat Girl" by Andre Dubus; "Being a Boy" by Julius Lester; "The Five Sexes, Revisited" by Anne Fausto-Sterling
Topics the Livingston Lancer Student Paper is working on... A teacher profile; organic food--is it a hoax?; the Democratic and Republican presidential conventions; campaign truths and lies; a review of the iPhone 5; affirmative action in the news.
I concluded today...That the three kinds of schools my English methods professor discussed--traditional (lecture/blackboard work), constructivist (students do and teachers facilitate the doing), and illusory (sham schools that have the right "sets" and "actors" in place, but in which no learning gets done)--can actually coincide in one and the same school over the course of any given day.
Am I prude? Isn't this too adult? How can they get away with this? How can I get with it? These were among the questions that came to mind during my observation today. There were at least two moments in class when I felt my own boundaries or preconceptions being shoved outwards. The first was when a student read a personal essay in which he quoted, quite frankly, an expletive-spewing fitness coach. Was it OK for the student to read aloud lines of dialogue such as "What the fuck are you doing?" and "This shit ain't easy"? I'm not sure where the line on profanity in the classroom is drawn, but I did find myself agreeing with the student: Since these were the coach's words, and since the student was conveying them within a personal essay, didn't he owe it to himself and his audience to "go hard" and tell it like he heard it? On the other hand, I'd wager the teacher wouldn't have picked this essay for a read-aloud if he was being observed. The second point where I felt boundaries being crossed (or transgressed depending on your point of view) was the intersexuality reading and discussion. When I was growing up, I cannot conceive that a topic like this would have ever come up in a classroom. The notion of two fixed genders occupying societally sanctioned roles was pervasive back then, as was the taboo of any acknowledgment of the existence of hermaphrodites. Clearly, times have changed. I would enjoy having a conversation about this in Teaching For Learning and will try to bring it up when the opportunity presents itself.
Student teacher Gomez, over and out.
Today's texts..."Fat Girl" by Andre Dubus; "Being a Boy" by Julius Lester; "The Five Sexes, Revisited" by Anne Fausto-Sterling
Topics the Livingston Lancer Student Paper is working on... A teacher profile; organic food--is it a hoax?; the Democratic and Republican presidential conventions; campaign truths and lies; a review of the iPhone 5; affirmative action in the news.
I concluded today...That the three kinds of schools my English methods professor discussed--traditional (lecture/blackboard work), constructivist (students do and teachers facilitate the doing), and illusory (sham schools that have the right "sets" and "actors" in place, but in which no learning gets done)--can actually coincide in one and the same school over the course of any given day.
Am I prude? Isn't this too adult? How can they get away with this? How can I get with it? These were among the questions that came to mind during my observation today. There were at least two moments in class when I felt my own boundaries or preconceptions being shoved outwards. The first was when a student read a personal essay in which he quoted, quite frankly, an expletive-spewing fitness coach. Was it OK for the student to read aloud lines of dialogue such as "What the fuck are you doing?" and "This shit ain't easy"? I'm not sure where the line on profanity in the classroom is drawn, but I did find myself agreeing with the student: Since these were the coach's words, and since the student was conveying them within a personal essay, didn't he owe it to himself and his audience to "go hard" and tell it like he heard it? On the other hand, I'd wager the teacher wouldn't have picked this essay for a read-aloud if he was being observed. The second point where I felt boundaries being crossed (or transgressed depending on your point of view) was the intersexuality reading and discussion. When I was growing up, I cannot conceive that a topic like this would have ever come up in a classroom. The notion of two fixed genders occupying societally sanctioned roles was pervasive back then, as was the taboo of any acknowledgment of the existence of hermaphrodites. Clearly, times have changed. I would enjoy having a conversation about this in Teaching For Learning and will try to bring it up when the opportunity presents itself.
Student teacher Gomez, over and out.
*Many people hide behind a mask or facade, may even you have at a time in your life. Reflect and write about an example of someone hiding behind a false impression.
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