Like our friends Hilda Dyon and Emily Style, Ed Philosophy wants in on the action!
Seriously--please use this space and this week to practice articulating some of the cornerstones of educational philosophy, your "stance" as a teacher. Do you consider yourself an activist teacher? Do you consider yourself a guardian of literary culture? Do you see your role as an English teacher as one who invites students to actively negotiate culture and wrestle with issues of humanity, identity and self? Do you see yourself as a teacher of texts?
WHO ARE YOU AS A TEACHER?
WHAT DO YOU STAND FOR?
WHAT DO YOU STAND AGAINST?
Please share with us your thoughts as they begin to crystallize. Thanks.
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I think I’ve learned some pretty important things about myself as a teacher since starting at North Providence. I’ve learned that I don’t want to be an English teacher so that I can teach kids to appreciate old literature or to get them excited about the same books I get excited about – I want to be an English teacher to teach kids how to “read the world”. I have a new appreciation for literature as a means of understanding different perspectives and people, a means of exploring the injustices of the world, a means of inspiring students to do something important with their lives. I never thought that I would someday decide that literature is of secondary importance in my English language arts classroom but that’s where I stand now. Of course I still want to instill a love of literature in every student, to have lively discussions about books and poems, and to do in-depth analyses of works but I think that the importance of doing all of those activities lies not in the fact that they will help students read better but in the fact that they will help students THINK better – about themselves and the things they see around them.
ReplyDeleteI’m sure I’ll be adding more to this later, when I read what everyone else writes and say “Oh yea! Me too!” but I wanted to get all of this on the blog for now.
What she just said!! I agree that teaching my students to "read the world" is huge! We are lucky to have a content area that perfectly lends itself to doing just that! Kathryn your post is reminding me of "Teaching for Joy and Justice" (Linda Christiansen from last semester)and you are SO right on with your ideas. I second everything Kathryn said and would like to add that I have learned that one other thing I truly stand for and believe in as a teacher is teaching the students who are sitting in front of me!! I love that each class is different and each student is different. I have found it intriguing and important to get to know WHO I am teaching so I can figure out HOW to teach them! I want to have high expectations for all of my students--but I want to remember to always meet them where they are then help to take them where I want them to be able to go.
ReplyDeleteMore later…..I just wanted to weigh in with a shout-out to Kathryn’s great ideas and start to get my mind going on my ideas as well. This is going to be a helpful way for all of us to bring our beliefs to the surface and begin to wrap our minds around articulating them in a succinct and meaningful way.
BTW-I am missing all of you, especially now that I am in Middle School alone, and was wondering if everyone is interested and able to go out sometime soon?
I feel like our conversation on Tuesday captured many of my “who I am as a teacher” stances. From the short time I have been at the middle school, Keith has taught me an interesting perspective to view literature and that it thinking about a text we read as a mirror and a window. The mirror image allows us to read and find the reflection in our society or ourselves and the window allows us to see new things and explore new worlds. I think it is important for students to read text with these images in mind but I’m not sure how it defines me as a teacher. It sounds like it agrees with Kathryn’s idea of teaching to “read the world”. I would say I teach in a 21century classroom environment, meaning bringing in outside material such as music into our lessons so students can form connections on multiple levels. This relates to loving and feeling passionate about what I am teaching and having my students feel the same connections to the lessons. In order to do this it is imperative I know my students before learning with them. This means getting to know them within the first week of the school year and learning their likes and dislikes to then create my classroom to cater to their needs.
ReplyDeleteI miss everyone too Tracy it's not easy being alone! I'm interested! Let's plan something...what nights are better for you?
So, something rather disturbing happened in my classroom on Friday afternoon (last period of the day on a Friday is always interesting and mind-bending...) Long story short, one of my kids told me (and the entire class) that another teacher had just told her that she "belonged in the basement with the retards picking up trash." Yup. Not kidding, not laughing. Her story led the rest of the class to pipe up with other stories about this teacher. I wanted to cry...this is my Comp English class filled with a few Inclusion kids.
ReplyDeleteAfter I picked my jaw up off the floor, I told every single one of them (and I called them each out by name) that they are not to listen when someone tells them that are not smart...and that when I leave them in December, and I tell people about my student-teaching experience, I will only have great stories about them. I told them that I really want to come back in June and watch them walk across the stage in their caps and gowns. They all, pretty much in unison, told me thank you and that they love me. I left on Friday (after talking to Rita) livid at the audacity of this jackass of a teacher, but also really happy that the students feel they can trust me, and that they know I am doing this (becoming a teacher) for them.
So, in conjunction with all of Kathryn's, Tracy's and Nicole's thoughts (which are awesome!) I also want to add that my Ed Philosophy will be rooted the condition that students know that I am there for them, I am a trustworthy adult in their lives. I want them to believe that they can go out into the world and do what ever it is they want to do (within the limits of the law, of course) as long as they put the effort in and work hard.
Oh my god, I was so angry. Ugh, I need a drink now too...so I am totally up for a night out with you ladies!
Part of my teaching philosophy is striving for something more. I'm trying to get the students to understand the play's events by reading the play aloud in class and going over important lines and figuring out what they mean in the context of the rest of the play. We've done a few small activities in class, and I'm planning on doing more. But I want myself and the students to strive for something more - what more can we get out of the text and out of ourselves through reading the text? What can we learn about ourselves from the characters? I'm trying so hard to do things right for the students and make the text interesting, so my idea is to help the students to really get involved in the text and as a result maybe even love it. I want the students to love what they're reading because I love what we're reading, and I'm striving for students' input in class discussions, but I know that in order to get them to that point, I need to have students writing more and doing other small activities. I want to do the best I can, and I want the students to do the best that they can with engaging with the text. It's a work in progress.
ReplyDeleteThis task proves far more difficult than I initially anticipated. I remember a friend of mine, years back, struggling with articulating her philosophy, and helping craft hers seemed easy to me at the time...after experiencing the classroom atmosphere, with actual student-people, I understand her dilemma. It's one thing to talk a good game and another to put all those theories into practice that behooves the students.
ReplyDeleteI love how this blog began and I have realized that I am bummed that I missed out on Practicum with you all - but I am so happy to share this time with you, observe your planning processes, to watch and learn from you all while grow as educators.
SO, I would love to steal what everyone has written - especially the concept of "life as text" - so true! This approach intellectually informs an individual endlessly - every facet of existence. I didn't know how to articulate this concept and I think you've all done it beautifully.
Jill helped me feel better about an aspect of my philosophy I've struggled with - one of caring and safety. I want my students to feel safe and cared for within the classroom; my heart goes out to kids who've been abused with such persecution - though every now and again the reality of such situations may be contorted by adolescent perception (I have learned through this experience that people are often loading superfluous, subjective context into situations, which may aid or interfere with communication - and teenagers tend to perceive everything as a negative, personalized response). I want students to feel that they have a voice and that I encourage intellectual curiosity, to foster a sense of critically approaching everything...even when doing so seems inane. But this needs to be tempered with careful guidance. Anyway, I will continue to try to synthesize these floaty bits into a fluid statement...but I know, for myself, this student-teaching experience helps shape these ideals into tangible practices.