Nothing propels the need to belt out some REO Speedwagon like the final days of school . . .
Teachers are grinning ear to ear, students are giddy, we all want out. As I stroll the halls I see unusually active classrooms, mostly filling the time until we are all free this Thursday . . .
In science class upstairs they are watching Twister . . . which I am sure holds TONS of actual scientific facts (yeah, right) . . . I look to my right into the math class and I see what looks like 30 Freshman talking about Lord knows what - certainly not math . . .
Oh, it may be a bit brisk for a June day - but we are almost done baby - and I am loving it.
Isn't life interesting? I thought these final day would never come. I was certain I would turn into Slimer from Ghostbusters and ooze into the crevices and cracks into the floor . . . and here I sit, grading my final quiz for my 11th graders . . . oh, how time flies when you are working your ass off.
I should probably wait to write this until next Friday when I am "actually" done, I think I just see my colleagues finishing up and I want to preemptively join in on the celebration . . . soon!
Two days down, an interminable number left to go. I am exhausted. I am flabbergasted. I am living moment to moment. So much is said every single day. There is so much to remember, so much to think about, so much to say.
The first day I went hoarse from talking too much and thought I was going to pass out.
Today, I was getting a little faint after second hour (AFTER SECOND HOUR) and ate an apple to cool the nerves (which helped). Forcing myself to eat is very helpful. Oh, I have been drinking SO much water (from talking) that I have to go to the restroom constantly. The restroom is upstairs, and you get 5 minutes between classes to run through the literal herd of teenagers to use the bathroom. Then get back in time and collect your thoughts enough to actually say something meaningful to the kids.
If you do not know anything about modernism, giving a 50 minute presentation on modernism is not your best bet.
Someone threw a paper Chinese Star at the board today while I was talking. I did not see who so I just picked it up and went in the direction it came and gave my best scowl: "WHO... THREW....THIS" I asked . . . and waited until I could see them sweat.
There is one girl in my 11th grade class who acts like everything (EVERYTHING) that happens is the BIGGEST DEAL EVER. She sighs and groans and mopes and says "GOD!" and "UGH!" to just about everything. Seriously, wow.
It is past 5pm and I really don't want to think about this anymore, so sayonara.
Okay, so I could not help but think back to my Montessori days (side note, is it not odd that something that was once my entire life is now almost forgotten because I am so immersed in this program?) when I spent time EVERY DAY reading to little ones. Picture books: is it even possible to state their significance. I read a book about a little penguin named Pete to this adorable little girl named Emma. At one point in the story Pete is called "Pint Sized Pete," so I said to Emme: "Emma, you are Pint Sized Pete!" Not only did she love this, she called me "Pint Sized Pete" everyday after that and asked me to read the book to her quite often. When other children would come up and listen in and perhaps get scared when Pete loses his way, she would say: "Don't worry, he will be okay. . ." or inform the scared child that in the end, Pete makes it just fine.
What Emma learned from this story, what all the children learned from the stories I read to them, what every child learns from anyone who reads anything to them—even if they only look at the pictures—is immeasurable.
Selfe (2004) in Toward New Media Texts: Taking Up the Challenges of Visual Literacy that teachers in the past have "typically presented [new media text] as second-class texts: either as 'dumbed down' communications that serveas 'stimuli for writing by [...] no substitute for the complexity of language' or as texts related to, but certainly not on an equal footing with, the 'real' work of the course'"(71). To me, this is as absurd as it is super bogus (thanks Rick). As I
write this, all I want to do is go read The Watchmen (thanks Danger!) which is pretty much the coolest book I have read in forever. However, it is a graphic novel and therefore no where near as sacred as Crime and Punishmentor The Crucible. Selfe adds that we continue to do non-visual texts because they are familiar. So, while the graphic novel sections of libraries and books shelves edge the musty classics into corners, we teachers keep denying areas of literacy because we are afraid of it or simple don't "get it." So, instead of taking the things youths are looking at head on (MTV, YouTube, MySpace) and integrating positive, educational and constructive aspects. . . we shy away in fear as the unmonitored shit storm grows.I really hope that the above picture expands for all to see as it took me longer to figure out how to upload a Comic Life picture than it did to make said picture . . .
So it begins with my father reading to me (or this father reading to his daughter), my love of the spoken word and the written word meshed in the best possible way as far back as I can recall. I then spent years mowing cereal and catching up on Duck Tails, Little House on the Prairie and other TV shows that fascinated me with their characters, arcs and stories. I soon became addicted to comic books and found the Batman graphic novels to be the ultimate in story and depth of artistry. It was not long before Matt Povlony and I were racing through Boxcar Children books in school at Nativiy of Mary. Those tales lead me to dig deep into action and adventure novels like Jurassic Park. Soon after that I was ready for the ultimate adventure to Middle Earth with Frodo and the rest of the Fellowship. My love for reading and story lead me to my college education at the University of Minnesota. Enrolled there I was able to travel throughout Ireland and learn more about the literary giants that lived there and changed literature with their beautiful language. All of these (albeit small) glimpses into my literary journey bring me to who I am today: a man with mere days standing before him and his first High School classroom.
Take a good hard look at Michael J., because that is how I feel right now. When did it come to this? Studying for today (an ongoing event for the last 8 hours) I have basically had to stare at this screen. Sure, I got up to go to the bathroom and to get dill pickle Pringles (why God?) and to go get my Gallagher book (thank you God!) and to plug my phone (also an Internet portal) into the wall... as much as I utilize this technology—I can't help but ask: is it really making anything easier? Is it making me a better teacher?
Like so many things, it depends on how you use it. Unfortunately, I am an impish, impulsive, adult-onset-ADD(probably due to this contraption)pop-culture-consumer so my ability to procrastinate or find other things to do just within this white demon is endless.
Okay: so schools "have been slow to react to the emergence of this new participatory culture" (Jenkins p.4), and I would tend to agree.
All of this "no cell phone" talk is absolute garbage. EVERY student has one. EVERY student pulls them out during class. The new teacher attitude is "pick your battles"—which is to say: "as long as I can get through class...then I won't even bother reprimanding anyone for cellphone use."
I'm sitting in the back of these rooms observing the students—many know that I am going to be their new teacher—and they are constantly pulling out some sort of device. In MORE THAN ONE class, the students were given time to "work" on their projects and they were allowed to pull out their contraptions. Two students (that I witnessed) were watching video media on their devices and all the teacher said when she saw it was "turn it down."
WTF!? I feel like a dinosaur. When I was in High School (here we go Grandpa...) the thought of WATCHING A MOVIE during class was literally science fiction. Sure, once you were in college you could watch films on your laptop during lectures, but what was the point? You could just as easily stay in your bed and watch movies and get the notes from someone else—why torture yourself in that uncomfortable chair?
Maybe I've seen too many techno-horror films (The Net, etc...)
Ok: so we need to close the gap, educate all in new literacy, digital media studies, yada yada enough already.
I completely agree with this article that just passing out the technology is not enough and that what is needed is an actual functioning knowledge to utilize technology to the best of its ability. I think that it is possible to bring out the best in some people but unfortunately there isn't enough of a filter in place where we need it most (YouTube, MySpace, etc.) to block out the worst in humanity (as the article suggests).
This article hits on a ton of the worries I have with technology and getting it into more hands and I really hope to look deeper into it when I have more time and am not having panic attacks over my teaching (IN TWO WEEKS)...anyway, I am going to integrate more differentiation and new literacies into my classroom than the students have had all year—but I'm going to be smart with it and hopefully show the students that they can accomplish something worthwhile and of quality without wasting a ton of time or integrity.
At this point—I believe that I am not working intensely with my 120 students on writing during my student teaching. Therefore it is ultimately difficult to apply the immediate pertinance of the Dornan et al. and Adger reading.
However, there will be "informal" writing assignments in my 9th and 11th grade classes (according to the syllabus) and whatever else I conjure up in my time there (along with the 50+ years of teaching I will do post-student teaching), so this information will be critical to turn back to. Things I found to be super helpful: (1) Differentiating assessing, evaluating and grading. (2) Student Self-Evaluation template and guide on p. 184/5. (3) No Red Pen! (4) Higher Order Concerns and Lower Order Concerns p.187. (5) Simple advice of steps 1-6 on p. 191/2 (6) Sample Rubrics on p.193/4. Things that made me ponder: (1) I couldn't tell if I agreed with the assessment of the student paper on p. 195. (2) How much does Dornan et al.'s idea of a Portfolio (200-204) differ from Romano's Multigenre Paper? Could you utilize a multigenre assignment throughout the semester as a type of portfolio? (3) Continued outrage over the politics of assessment p. 206
The Adger piece felt much like a smaller retread of the Dornan et al. chapter, with one major difference: it focused heavily on vernacular in various dialects.
I remember dear Michael Dennis Brown teaching us to never fear the comma, the dash, the semicolon—"this is how we speak and we should write how we speak," he would say. When put up against Adger's piece however, it is safe to say that perhaps Brown wouldn't proclaim to certain classroom audiences to write how they speak. Indeed, we are looking for "proper English" are we not? The "student's dialect may interfere in writing"(115) Adger explains.
***Outside my window a red Chevy Blazer just drove by with a aqua couch strapped to the hood and—I kid you not—a man was standing on the back bumper grasping onto the couch and the hood of the car and yelled: "I'm king of the world!" Wow. I just had to share that.***
Where was I...oh yeah, I think that THIS reading would be appropriate for CI 5644. We are all entering the mainstream classroom so being able to spot and assist students with varying vernacular dialects would be more pertinent than what to do for a new ELL/ESL student.
In Lauren Cantent's new film The Class, written and starring François Bégaudeau, an unengaged student named Souleymane is asked to read his "self-portrait" aloud. Confidently he states to the class: "I have nothing to say about me because no one knows me but me."
Besides my obvious plug for this film (which everyone must see), Souleymane reminds me of the child in the Heath piece who tells his teacher: "Ain't nobody can talk about things being about theirselves" (105).
This seemingly simplistic dialog between white teacher and black student speaks volumes about the disconnect Heath sees between the in-group and the out-group.
Once the schools are desegregated (in Trackton—the town Heath researches), black parents complain that the "[white] teachers won't listen" because "nobody play by the rules [the black students] know" (107).
In the film and in the schools Heath visits, the white teachers seem to be merely wanting their students to be mundane "question-answerers" who can spout "formulaic responses to appropriate occasions" (110). Heath notes that often an adult will speak to a child through ruminations, expecting that child to be a "passive listener" giving the adult an excuse to speak to his or herself. While the Heath piece examines parents with their very young, I cannot help but find similarities in the classroom today.
In one room I observe in, the teacher rambles almost the entire hour (to his large 11th grade class), speaking about his childhood, his past, his history. He will throw in generic questions ("and what year was WWI?") to which the students will fill in the blank. He will then move on and cause the room to be one big passive ear.
I DO NOT want to condemn this experienced teacher from whom I am learning volumes, however it is worth noting that in his all-white AP class, there is intense discussion, profound questions ("are you justifying the hijackers of 9/11?") and enormous room for thought and debate. Why can't this same thing be happening in the the large—much more diverse—11th grade class? Aren't those students just as capable as the AP class? Do we—as white teachers—perpetuate the passive listener and ask only the generic questions that can only beg formulaic responses?
How do we remedy the idea of talking "at" students instead of "with" (115)?
If some students are deliberately raised to not share personal information with others (or strangers), how can we expect them to delve into our deeply personal projects (i.e. telling audiences about their community, their families, their lives)?
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