rules as tools to create meaning (3-30)

So, yesterday I visited a teacher at Hickman High School to try to get some information I can use for the seminar paper in my 18th century Br. Lit. class on how Jane Austen may be presented to high school students. This teacher primarily teaches an AP Language course, and when I asked her how she came up with the course, she told me that she had created it several years ago. Previously, they had not had such a course, and she created it based on her own background knowledge to fill in the gap in the curriculum. Even though we have already spent half a semester talking about and preparing for English 1000 which we will be teaching, the fact of “creating a course” still terrifies me. The logical part of my brain tries to tell me that I have a fair background in composition theory and practice, both as an undergrad and from this class. By the time I start teaching, I will have completed five years of college level work, which is certainly more than my students. And yet in some ways, I still feel like I am being told, “Teach students how to write—Go!” and the task seems impossible. Now, there is a connection here (at least in my mind) between my angst and the readings about grammar. While I am interested in the ways grammar work, I am definitely not a prescriptivist. As long as people share enough grammar in common to be able to communicate, I really don’t care whether or not they are using formal, long-standing rules. The rules of grammar are just the necessary tools to making meaning. So, what I think I’m lacking in the area of teaching is a firm understanding of its grammar. I know there is meaning that I want to convey to my students. I’m just not quite sure how to structure it to get that meaning across. And, I’m not sure there are many hard and fast rules about teaching. Even as a student, I know that teaching approaches vary widely. I’m not sure this analogy really solves anything, but it helps to write about it. Maybe I should also remind myself that when I stutter in the classroom, both literally and figuratively, it just means that I am trying to acquire a new language.

a love/hate relationship (3-9)

This probably doesn’t come through either in class or in my blog because I am generally a very reserved, formal type of person, but this class tends to evoke some fairly strong emotional responses in me.

First, I just have to share some of my reactions to class discussion from last week. Personally, I fully realize and appreciate the value of invention activities. I had some great professors as an undergrad who made excellent use of these, and therefore I definitely want to use them in my class. This is not, however, to say that they are foolproof, which I think is sometimes the hope. I get the feeling that our textbooks are very optimistic about what can be accomplished in freshman comp. The ABGW, especially with its statements about what students will learn at the beginning of each chapter, gives the idea that students can’t help but learn and improve. And our other readings are also usually positive because teachers are talking about strategies that have worked for them. The fact of the matter is that sometimes even the best invention activities fail. I remember one composition assignment where I thought I came up with a fairly original idea using and analyzing photographs, but by the time it came due, I hated my project, thought it was dumb, and finished it the night before just so I could turn it in. So, its fabulous to say that first year comp students can contribute in original ways to the conversation (and I’m not going to deny that they can), its just that we have to realize that it won’t always happen like that, no matter how good our preparation to help stimulate and guide them.

Which leads to some of my reactions to the idea from class about being in a “constant state of invention.” Again, this sounds great, and I do realize that it is important to always be open to new ideas because you never know when a good one is going to show up. But at the same time, the use of the word “constant” frustrates me. (And I should preface whatever I am going to say next with the fact that this week has somehow become incredibly busy, and therefore my following statements could probably be dismissed as somewhat of an irrational rant triggered by the usual “What happened to the first half of the semester!” stress.) I guess what bothered me about the use of the word “constant” is that it denies those necessary breaks in mental activity that are so necessary to staying fresh and inventive. I don’t know if this is as true here, but at Truman, as much as I loved living in the dorms, one of the things that occasionally bothered me was their attempts to incorporate and combine dorm and classroom life. While I understood that they wanted us to realize that what you do in class can and does have broader significance, sometimes I just wanted them to realize that we need our time away from school. It is easy to feel the same way here—every aspect in your life seems to relate to class, and it is hard to find a moment when you are not thinking about school, either consciously or unconsciously. (Well, I do have non-school related parts of my life, but they seem a bit lost in the chaos right now.) I always hope that when I am a teacher I will remember that there is more to my students’ lives besides school. I guess it is just finding that line between caring deeply (which I have to admit I do) and realizing that apathy also happens (I know it does to me). I wonder what it would take to balance my life so that I could care deeply but also be able to walk away at times so that apathy wouldn’t happen?

The other thing that has inspired some strong reactions in me is the articles for this week about the use of technology. I do realize the great things that technology can do. Typing in a typewriter and working in a library have made me fully appreciate word processing on a computer as well as how computers allow us to sort, save, and retrieve information. That said, there is also a part of me that hates working on computers. Part of this, I realize, may be from my limited knowledge/understanding/familiarity with them. I am one of the ones who makes the argument that I would rather have the human interaction than communication by machine. When I saw the title of the Ray essay about using computers, I was all ready to hate the essay. Once I started reading, however, I found it to be very reasonable, and I agreed with a lot of it, but he seemed to be ok with a very limited use of computers. Personally, the idea of holding class discussion via some type of instant messenger sounds absolutely horrible to me because that is not how I like to communicate. I guess it is just another of those areas where I will have to find a balance between how much technology I want to use, how much I have access to, and how much my students want/need to use technology.

Invisible Teaching (3-2)

So, I have still been thinking about my post from the class blog. Over the past however many years that I’ve been in school (and I really don’t want to count right now), I’ve obviously had lots of teachers with very diverse teaching styles and philosophies. It has only been more recently, however, (like since I’ve realized that my own time of teaching is near) that I’ve tried to make myself consciously aware of how the teachers go about teaching. For some teachers, I’ve decided, “Yeah, they seem effective, and I could do that,” while I’ve had others who have left me wondering, “What is their purpose, and how could I ever replicate their class, and why would I want to?” So, obviously, I have a vague idea of what works for me. But, I guess what is hidden from students is sometimes the goals of a class and how the teacher decides what to do to meet such goals. Now, I’m not saying that all teachers should come into class and write on the board the goals for that day and then the class plans. I had one teacher who did that, and I don’t think the students really cared; they were possibly even turned off by it. But, a class like this is the place to talk about the fact that teachers have to decide what they want their students to learn and how they are going to go about that. (Otherwise students probably think that teachers are born with a lesson plan in mind that never changes.)

Interestingly, both of my parents are high school teachers, and my aunt and cousin are also both teachers. And as much as we seem to talk about school and education around the family table, I’ve never heard any of them be really explicit about how they plan their classes. I guess most of them have taught so long that they know what they want to teach and the planning is more unconscious. (Although I have heard more from my dad recently as they have been making some curriculum changes.) (And with my mom, when I had her class, I know that she did ask my opinion about some of the things she did and whether or not she should change/keep certain lessons.) I guess what this all comes down to is just being aware of and appreciating the choices we have in the classroom and perhaps gaining confidence in our ability to make such choices.