Earlier this summer, I took some time off from work before I started the MAC program to enjoy the things I foresaw not having time to once I started classes. Besides spending a shameful amount of time playing video games, I took the opportunity to read for pleasure, something that I haven't done in quite some time. In about three weeks, I managed to finish four novels all of which were outstanding (Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk, Endurance, American Sniper, and The Great Gatsby). While going through these books, I realized how rarely I read for pleasure as an undergrad, and I realized how rarely I would get to read for pleasure during this program. We read constantly in my courses: articles, book chapters, bills, biographies and more. Yet I feel as though I'm constantly distracted while reading this information: making notes of what I want to remember later, checking my email to see if there are any updates to assignments, thinking about the other readings that I have to do, and much more. Yesterday during our Teaching with Tech class though, we took 20 minutes to just sit down and read an article (Ironic right? Doing nothing but reading a paper copy of an article in a technology class?). The article was about the advent of the "digital native children" and their arrival and adjustment at school. It recommended practices and suggested things that one might do to engage this child in the work at hand. I'm astounded, as I sit down to write this blog, at how much I remember from that article especially considering I didn't annotate, highlight or make any other effort to keep track of the information. I internalized this particular course reading the way that I do a novel that I have chosen to pick up. I never once felt distracted and I focused on the content in the piece the entire time. I wonder if any of my classmates had a similar experience? In my undergraduate experience and even in my high school years, I can recall very few incidents that we took the time during class, to read and then discussed the content. I wonder if people would take more away from academic readings if they occurred during class time? I wonder if that atmosphere better facilitates focus?
Switching gears dramatically,we devoted much of our class period to discussing John Dewey's philosophy on education and how we felt it meshed with modern day necessities. We spent a fair amount of time discussing a particular belief of Dewey's Creed which says,
"I believe that next
to deadness and dullness, formalism and routine, our education is threatened
with no greater evil than sentimentalism."
He said that sentiment had its place in the classroom, but it had to be relevant and focused. This idea of sentimentalism as an "evil" is curious to me because so much of educational research right now points to emotional connections with students as a great approach to form the best learning environment possible. An investment in the interests of the student seems to be a key ingredient to academic success for students, and that is going to come with some sort of sentiment. Perhaps there is a limit though. Perhaps a teacher needs to recognize and understand places where they should get involved and places where they should step back and leave the sentiment to a fellow classmate or to a different adult in the child's life. It's an interesting thing to consider through the technological paradigm because mediums of interaction with our students are increasing immensely. In class yesterday, an anecdote was shared about a teacher who started a twitter account for a class and was then followed by one of his students who had some very revealing tweets about his destructive and unhealthy personal life. This raised issues of privacy and issues related to this idea of sentiment and engagement. Does a teacher have a responsibility to try to reach out to the student? Is that important, or is that an example of a domain that shouldn't involve the sentiments of a teacher?
This video recently went viral not too long ago, and I think addresses both of the issues (perhaps somewhat loosely) that I've brought up in this blog. In the video, you can see a young student, who has returned to the classroom after dropping out of school, passionately appeals to a teacher to, instead of just pass out handouts, "touch their freakin' hearts". What exactly does this entail? He discusses that all kids don't learn the same and need to be stimulated. Could it entail reading sessions in class where the only objective is to read? Might this involve technology or might this be something entirely different. Might this involve sentimentalism? If so, how much? I think these are all more than worthy of our consideration and hopefully, through resolving some of these issues, we can begin to "touch some freakin' hearts".
Casey- I really enjoy reading your blogs. You have a way of touching people with your writing- sometimes in a funny way and sometimes on an emotional level. I felt for the boy in the video, I have to admit it gave me a little anxiety because I hate conflict but he was right in everything he said. This is how I felt when we were given the "packet" to read :) It is really surprising how different we all feel about teaching, learning, and technology.
I agree with you that focus was runnin' high during the in-class reading time. I wasn't just okay with it -- I was honestly thankful for it. It was like a gift in that the instructor didn't just require us to not focus on anything else -- he allowed us to not focus on anything else. When we read for class the next day, we find ourselves having to get through it so that we can start other reading, or go to sleep, or play games or whatever else it is that we do -- we find our thoughts wandering. We lose the present -- and I think this is where recall is lost too. There's a Zen koan that this reminds me of:
Zen students are with their masters at least ten years before they presume to teach others. Nan-in was visited by Tenno, who, having passed his apprenticeship, had become a teacher. The day happened to be rainy, so Tenno wore wooden clogs and carried an umbrella. After greeting him Nan-in remarked: "I suppose you left your wodden clogs in the vestibule. I want to know if your umbrella is on the right or left side of the clogs."
Tenno, confused, had no instant answer. He realized that he was unable to carry his Zen every minute. He became Nan-in's pupil, and he studied six more years to accomplish his every-minute Zen.
When we stay present, we remember. And I feel like, sometimes, the reason why we're unable to stay present is because we don't give ourselves permission to. Rory gave us permission, and there were great results. I think it's important that we give our students this permission too, both for short-term purposes (class discussions on the readings) and long-term purposes (as training for staying present at all times). Both would go a long way towards student learning.
Casey- I really enjoy reading your blogs. You have a way of touching people with your writing- sometimes in a funny way and sometimes on an emotional level. I felt for the boy in the video, I have to admit it gave me a little anxiety because I hate conflict but he was right in everything he said. This is how I felt when we were given the "packet" to read :) It is really surprising how different we all feel about teaching, learning, and technology.
ReplyDeleteI agree with you that focus was runnin' high during the in-class reading time. I wasn't just okay with it -- I was honestly thankful for it. It was like a gift in that the instructor didn't just require us to not focus on anything else -- he allowed us to not focus on anything else. When we read for class the next day, we find ourselves having to get through it so that we can start other reading, or go to sleep, or play games or whatever else it is that we do -- we find our thoughts wandering. We lose the present -- and I think this is where recall is lost too. There's a Zen koan that this reminds me of:
ReplyDeleteZen students are with their masters at least ten years before they presume to teach others. Nan-in was visited by Tenno, who, having passed his apprenticeship, had become a teacher. The day happened to be rainy, so Tenno wore wooden clogs and carried an umbrella. After greeting him Nan-in remarked: "I suppose you left your wodden clogs in the vestibule. I want to know if your umbrella is on the right or left side of the clogs."
Tenno, confused, had no instant answer. He realized that he was unable to carry his Zen every minute. He became Nan-in's pupil, and he studied six more years to accomplish his every-minute Zen.
(http://www.ashidakim.com/zenkoans/35everyminutezen.html)
When we stay present, we remember. And I feel like, sometimes, the reason why we're unable to stay present is because we don't give ourselves permission to. Rory gave us permission, and there were great results. I think it's important that we give our students this permission too, both for short-term purposes (class discussions on the readings) and long-term purposes (as training for staying present at all times). Both would go a long way towards student learning.
Thanks for the great post, Mr. Smith.
Quick question though: beets?