Literacy is the key to humanity’s advancement; the ability to beneft from another person’s lifetime of learning in a fraction of that time is what has allowed our level of technological sophistication to advance to the point it has. Similarly, in our time in this program teacher candidates have been reminded time and again that “good teachers borrow, [while] great teachers steal”. Now, we’ve been given an article to read that combines both of these facts.
True to form for education, I plan to steal as much of the learning acquired in this work and apply it to my own practice as an educator. This article was written by an educator who was able to shadow a few students in an attempt to gain perspective on what their daily lives at school were like. Out of all the learning mentioned in this article, there are a few points that stand out particularly to me. First, the amount of time students spend sitting idly is way too high. As mentioned in the article, “sitting is exhausting”. Anyone who has ever been through one of our 7am-5pm days of coursework at CSUSM knows this to be true. Why, then, is our system set up so that “high school students are sitting passively and listening during approximately 90% of their classes”? I personally enjoyed my lecture classes in high school, but that doesn’t mean they were easy for me. Sometimes, to build up the basic foundation of content knowledge, it’s necessary to default to this, but it should never be the bulk of a lesson. I aim to be sure to incorporate student movement, be it stretching or moving through the classroom as part of an activity, into my lesson planning. That way students are better equipped to learn, as their bodies are more awake and their energy levels are higher.
I like lecture; I enjoy talking about my content and, on the other side of the desk, I enjoy hearing people who are experts in a field talk about what they do. Even so, lecture does set an unfortunate precedent of students not learning to ask good questions or discover their voice and form their own conclusions. In my classes, I hope to incorporate more student participation even in lectures, having them write, share, and otherwise engage with material as it is presented.
Another point that was brought up that stood out to me was that the author says they felt “a little bit like a nuisance all day long” when they shadowed students. This is accurate to my memories of high school, and I can see it happening at my current school site.
I’ve mentioned in other posts the surprisingly dismissive attitude some members of my department have toward students they have decided are stupid. This is where that attitude, even when not directly mentioned to students, colors their educational experience. These sorts of hostile or dismissive attitudes about students lend themselves to an environment that at best leaves students feeling like pests, and more often seems actively hostile to them. In my interactions with students and with my friends outside of school, I make use of sarcasm and good-natured ribbing in my interactions. However, I always make a point of communicating to the people I address in this manner that I am being facetious and actually hold them in high regard. I think there is absolutely a place for this kind of behavior, but it is important to build up a background of mutual respect first.
I like lecture; I enjoy talking about my content and, on the other side of the desk, I enjoy hearing people who are experts in a field talk about what they do. Even so, lecture does set an unfortunate precedent of students not learning to ask good questions or discover their voice and form their own conclusions. In my classes, I hope to incorporate more student participation even in lectures, having them write, share, and otherwise engage with material as it is presented.
Another point that was brought up that stood out to me was that the author says they felt “a little bit like a nuisance all day long” when they shadowed students. This is accurate to my memories of high school, and I can see it happening at my current school site.
I’ve mentioned in other posts the surprisingly dismissive attitude some members of my department have toward students they have decided are stupid. This is where that attitude, even when not directly mentioned to students, colors their educational experience. These sorts of hostile or dismissive attitudes about students lend themselves to an environment that at best leaves students feeling like pests, and more often seems actively hostile to them. In my interactions with students and with my friends outside of school, I make use of sarcasm and good-natured ribbing in my interactions. However, I always make a point of communicating to the people I address in this manner that I am being facetious and actually hold them in high regard. I think there is absolutely a place for this kind of behavior, but it is important to build up a background of mutual respect first.