Solitude - Parachilna Gorge

Solitude - Parachilna Gorge
Originally uploaded by Georgie Sharp

Why are we stuck with using textbooks as our only classroom resource? Look at the vast amount of information in this photograph! Students could learn about a different country, weather, land formation, biology, and virtually anything else to do with the environment, not to mention how the exquisite artistic element of photography will most likely engage students so much more than a textbook.

Literacy Blog 5: Increasing Efficiency

Many of us have been blogging about time management.  It seems that there are not enough hours in the school day to accomplish all of the teaching and learning necessary!  I like Routman's suggestions in Chapter 9.  Conferencing is a wonderful tool to enhance learning and she has so many suggestions for ways to make conferencing time-efficient (see page 213).

One interesting point she makes is that we (teachers) should write suggestions for our students.  I've seen many teachers emphasize the need for students to copy work into their own journals.  I wonder if this is an effective way for the students to learn the material.  After all, if they aren't subsequently taught study strategies, then what are they going to do with the information they took precious time to copy down?

The expert teacher will apply Routman's recommendation that we teach and demonstrate on the spot.  I think that the swift and seamless integration of activities and being prepared to teach new concepts as they arise in discussion are very important skills to have.  I hope to have more time to practice this in my student teaching.

My favorite one of Routman's suggestions is to prepare students for the ensuing activity.  By preparing students for the task(s) ahead, they get to practice planning and organization skills.  They are held responsible for having the proper materials available (their pencil, journals, rough drafts, etc.) so that transition time between activities is minimized.  Also, students can spend their brainpower thinking about the day(s) ahead instead of moving through school task by task, disjointed lessons that may or may not seem to have a rhyme or reason.  I will definitely take this bit of advice to the classroom.  We need to give students the opportunity to practice preparing for the future!

What's even more fantastic about making processes time-efficient is that the students stay engaged because the process is less boring.  There is significantly less down time/wait time where we need to wait for the whole class to reach a checkpoint.  If we can expedite processes without detracting from the learning, shouldn't we do so?  Think of all the other engaging learning experiences we can bring to the classroom with all the time saved! 

Popularity

This is to all my girls who were singing songs from musicals earlier this week:



Ahhh, the middle school years can be so difficult!  Who doesn't want to be popular?  It's amazing the variety of extremes that adolescents will go to in order to gain this esteem.  As teachers, we need to be conscientious of the ways that our middle schoolers are trying to gain this "respect" from their peers.  From what I've seen, one of the most horrendous things a middle school teacher can do is embarrass a student in front of the rest of the class.  And the only way we're going to succeed in not embarrassing them is to know what each of our students values in their peer relations.

Making Decisions: Considering Legal Issues

The other night, I was listening to some Intelligence for Life on the radio.  They were talking about how we have  to be extra conscious about the photos that we post on the internet.  This may seem like a no-brainer, but the example they gave made me recalibrate my thinking. 

The radio program gave the example of a doting parent wanting to share pictures of their baby with their friends.  If they were to post a cute picture of their baby splashing in the tub on a site such as Picasa, they might find themselves faced with charges for distribution of child pornography.  Obviously, the doting parent had no intention of committing such a heinous act, but in this world of digital document distribution, we must rethink the way that others interpret our actions.

When we hear stories of teachers being charged for any sort of wrong action or behavior I wonder whether they were aware of the legal issues behind their choice.  Given, some of the messes that these teachers find themselves tangled in are probably regretted, blatant errors in judgment.  However, there must be many situations that do not present themselves as obvious, wrong choices...like sharing your cute baby pictures with friends on the internet!

Literacy Blog 4: The Right to Write

As I sit down to write my post, it strikes me as ironic that I feel completely uninspired by this week's readings.  Why, I ask myself over and over again, do I find Lamott so offensive?  Here's what I've deduced:

Lamott is obviously a strong writer.  Her book is a national bestseller, her advice is proven true, her examples are quirky anecdotes from her own life experience.  What else could a reader possibly ask for?  A writing style that the reader is aching to mimic, empathy that shows the reader that his or her life's challenges are understood and cared about, exemplar choices of words that challenge the reader's intellect, or simply a fantastical story that whisks the reader far from the mundanities of everyday life.  Is that so much to ask for?

Well, yes.  And I think that this may be one of the most important notions in teaching literature.  We teachers have been inspired by works of writing since...well...since before we can even remember.  The challenge we face is convincing our students that the literature we are having them read and analyze is worth their time and brainpower.  While one choice we could make is to find a way to translate our enthusiam into a convincing argument for studying the text, the other option we could take is to step out of our personal-opinion-box and see the literature with fresh eyes, from the view of our students.  In either case, we must find ourselves reevaluating our perception of good literature in order to provide our students with the rich boundlessness of literature that they deserve -- literature that is meaningful to them.

Speaking of which, how can we expect our students to grow into literate adults when they do not have access to materials that develop literacy?  Books are not cheap.  Although many are readily available at the library, have we taken into account other factors such as the cost and availability of transportation to get to the library? 

There is a website (and there are probably others, too) that is dedicated to donating money to promote literacy.  All we have to do is click a button once a day and sponsors will donate money to buy books or other literacy tools (such as computers).  You can visit the site by clicking here.  Isn't it astounding how little effort it takes each of us to provide such a wonderful gift to people across our nation?

So, back to Lamott.  Just as we want our students to write in a way that is purposeful for their own development as individuals, I must honor Lamott's choice to express herself in a way that brings meaning to her own consciousness.  Although I find none of the four admirable qualities stated above in her writing, I realize that it is my own pair of good-literature goggles that I am peering through, and I have yet to relieve myself of this filter which mars my ability to make her writing meaningful to me. 

I undeniably need to work on this.  I also know that this will be an arduous task, with perhaps only a small chance of success (due to my evident stubbornness on this particular subject).  How do we make sure our students do not wage the same war that I am fighting now?  Will their lack of an established stance on literature magnify the consequences for them?  While we are all developing as readers and writers, our students should be progressing through this at a far greater rate.  How do we make sure that they are studying meaningful literature that nurtures this growth?