Week 3 Reaction Post - Reaction to Reading

A few things this week moved me in this week’s reading. The first was the idea of downward spiral talk. I’ve had several dreams and ideas over the years, and unfortunately have learned not to share these with many of my friends and family. There are some I can share these thoughts and ideas with, but I’ve become a bit jaded when it comes to sharing with those who are dream stompers.

When it comes to dreams, passion is usually what ignites them. I identified with two stories in the last chapter for this week, the first was about Roz at the service station. When motivated by a dream, we can ask for something we normally couldn’t ask for. The other story was about a failing school and a dream to introduce music to the students there.

Every educator should be able to identify with a story about using our passion to reach students. Often I think that there is a fear that if one is too passionate we will alienate some students. While this may be true, we should be more concerned about alienating a greater number by lacking passion. It’s so easy to think it’s the kids who are unmotivated instead of that we may not be the teachers we wish to be. So educators need to reflect and think whether or not we are doing everything in our power to motivate all our students. While I truly believe it is unrealistic to think we will be able to hook every single kid every single time, I do think we should at least try. If we do our best bang up job, we can at least say we gave it our all.

Now if only I had that mindset and energy to follow through every day I teach! But I can work on it…..(to be continued!)

Week 3 Reaction Post - Publishing 1

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Here’s a short video reflection on some publishing options for my action research project.

Week 2 Reaction Post - Chapter 6

So if a rule in life is not to take yourself too seriously, one of thoughts was of a speech one of my students did recently. The assignment is for students to find a speech they really like, analyze it, and create their own speech from it by reading a portion of the speech and writing an introduction and conclusion for it.

In the realm of making this project easy for students who have the exact opposite problem, not liking to take themselves seriously, I allow a good variety of options to choose from. In the three years I've been teaching Speech and done this assignment, I've only had one speech chosen that was blatantly funny (a commencement speech by Will Farrell). My favorite choice was made this year, by a quiet and sweet student named Sam. She choose a speech with a fairly serious intent, but a casual and not too serious outcome.

The speech Sam choose to read from was made into a famous song, and was actually written by a woman named Mary Schmich who was a reporter for the Chicago tribune. The speech was mistakenly attributed to Kurt Vonnegut, and was later made into a song.

The great thing about this choice was that Sam wasn't taking herself or the assignment too seriously. It seems the author of the original speech was doling out advice in a casual and fun fashion, and therefore wasn't taking herself too seriously, either.

As educators, we do have a very important job, as we are at least partially responsible for students education and futures. It's very easy to get caught up in all of that, and maybe take ourselves a bit too seriously. Maybe we need to follow the examples set by Sam and Mary, and just have a little fun, and sit back and gain some perspective. Maybe a little reflection will occur, and we'll come up with our own message and/or advice!

Here's the video of Mary's advice:

The video at YouTube:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xfq_A8nXMsQ

Read about Mary Schmich:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wear_Sunscreen

Week 2 Reaction Post -Trisha Cianfrocco

My response to Trisha's Week 2 Reading Reaction follows her post here:

I wish that I had this book my first few years of teaching. I couldn’t except the fact that I did not reach every single student in my class. I took everything to heart and started to reconsider the profession I chose, the career that was “my calling” in life. I thought that I would never get past that and started to hate going to work everyday and would cry silently during my planning period. It wasn’t until one of my students through a fit about reading Shakespeare with the others joining in that I thought was the last straw. I got this moment of awakening, remembering the journey I made to get here, and how much I love literature, especially Shakespeare. “This is my passion”, I thought and decided to be myself and show my students that passion. The very next day (no exaggeration) that one student that had the fit, walked into my classroon waving a book in my face, shouting, “see! see! what have you done!... I am reading Hamlet!!!” I knew then what I needed to do everyday, SHOW MY PASSION! Stay true to myself so they will stay true to themselves.

Wednesday, May 12, 2010

2 Comments

Saturday, May 15, 2010 - 09:01 PM

joe bustillos

I can see it now, "Damn you, teacher, because of you I learned something. Argh!" Too funny. And truthful.

Saturday, May 15, 2010 - 09:56 PM

Therese Lunsford

Trisha,

I love what you have to say here. I feel too often that we are caught up in the bureaucracy of teaching that we forget why we're hear in the first place. You are so correct, especially for those of us who are secondary or specialty teachers. We got into teaching because we love our subjects, and the kids as well.

I'm sorry to hear that you had such a rough patch at the start of your career, but I'm very glad you toughed it out! There are many young teachers who would benefit from your sharing that you've had that experience, and you've done that here! It's good to know none of us are alone in our feelings.

Week 2 Reaction Post - Beckie Lamborn

Week one reading proved a creative feat. I used a PDF preview from the Internet that provided the majority of the first three chapters. Now in week two with a hard copy in hand two topics come to mind, one referring to the chapter on “Giving an A”, and a second comment from the chapter “Leading from the Chair”.

I was reminded of the importance of music and the impact it has on the emotions of young children after reading (p.43) the Zander’s story about the violinist from his orchestra. The story is about a little 5 year old girl whose aunt was the violinist mentioned. The aunt had made up a fairy tale story about the music she had been playing (Mahler’s 9th Symphony), but after repeatedly hearing the music the little 5 year old asked for the “real story” behind the music. Learning that the music was really about the life of a dying man, whose childhood had been surrounded by the death of his 7 sickly siblings, an alcoholic father, invalid mother, and later the death of his own child didn’t deter the child’s interest in the piece and makes me realize the depth of children’s capabilities. The child recognized that the story was not about a fairy tale princess, and she recognized the emotional quality in the piece. Zander’s recounting of the incident makes me want to hear this classical piece with the dramatic sound that caught the ear of the little five year old. With the invention of YouTube I actually have had the opportunity to listen to the music as performed by Myung-Whun Chung’s orchestra, and I have embedded the video above

Secondly, in the chapter about “Leading from the Chair” I was reminded of the many times, I ask my students to help each other out during an activity. Students in a Cuban and American orchestra came together to play a piece of music with a Cuban beat that was hard for the American players to perform. Even with the instruction of the Cuban conductor they could not get in sync. Zander suggested to the American students that they learn from the best teachers, the fellow Cuban musicians. The students taught each other and the music came together remarkably. Later playing an American piece the Cuban students learned from the American students. The conductors were essentially overseeing two groups and watching the leadership skills growing in the hands of their students.

I think it is a good learning experience for students to help each other not only because it develops leadership skills, but also because it can foster the development of good character traits like compassion and kindness. There are additional benefits that blossom from this kind of teaching. Students gain independence and confidence, and they also build connections strengthening their own understanding of the topics they are sharing with classmates. One of the most exciting activities that one of our fourth grade teacher does is she lets a student be the teacher for a day. Both teacher and students love the role reversal, and the day is always a memorable one for the children.

1 COMMENT

THERESE LUNSFORD

Beckie,

Your last few sentences in your last paragraph make me laugh. I wrote in response to the chapter reading this week about my almost accidental experience where I let a student be "art teacher" for a day - or class period, to be more exact. Of course, when it came to clean-up time, I had to take back over, but that was one of the most fun moments I've had as an elementary school teacher.

And thank-you for embedding the video, I am going to give it a listen! I look forward to looking over your AR work again very soon, too, now that I have the url from the MAC class document. It will be wonderful to see who your work compares to mine, as we both have a component of technology in art.

Saturday, May 15, 2010 - 09:19 PM

Mahler’s Symphony #9

as played on YouTube by

Myung-Whun Chung

Week 2 Reaction Post - Chapter 5

As a teacher, I am automatically a leader. While this position doesn’t always make me comfortable, it is a part of the job. If I were just a leader, I’d have no issues with my role, but the fact is that in my classroom I am the only leader, and this is where I sometimes have issue. However, I don’t share these feelings with my students, because I feel they might eat me alive if they knew what I was thinking.

There have been times when I handed over the reigns to my students. I don’t recall how or why it happened, but in response to what one of my elementary art students said, I responded, “Well, then, you be teacher for a bit….” And the young man jumped at the chance to run the classroom. While I sat down to work on a drawing, he walked around the classroom and did what I typically do; walk around and offer feedback to the students on their work, and offer help if they needed it. He told a group that was too loud to “bring the volume down” and generally did a pretty good job as a stand in for me. It was a fun moment for all of us, and had other kids begging to get to be “teacher for a day.”

In my speech class at the high school, I try to give the kids as many opportunities as possible to get up in front of the class as possible. When I do notes, sometimes I assign simple chapters to the kids to teach to each other. Small groups are formed and each group is assigned a part of a study guide, and each group has to present their portion of the notes as a small group. Therefore, they are also acting as my replacements for a brief period of time. Of course, they are communicating and publicly speaking as part of the exercise, which is highly relevant for a speech course. But even better, the students are engaging with the material in a wholly different way than what they are used to, so they have to look at the material from a teaching perspective. Some kids just go along with it, but some really get it, and you can see it in how they present the material. They take their job as teacher seriously, and it’s nice to see some kids respond this way.

I just think it’s always nice to share power, and to get everyone involved in the process. To make our students feel valued and appreciated should be one of our daily goals as educators.

Week 2 Reaction Post - Chapter 4

“Being a contribution” is a concept that should ring true for just about any adult. We put a lot of stock into our careers, our families, our relationships. We judge ourselves by these things, as well as measures as silly as the money we make.

The truth is, it’s hard to get away from these types of measures. Even in judging ourselves by our relationships, we’re valuing our selves based on other people. There are times when people in our lives are going to let us down, and we have very little to do with it. We have to learn to decide how much personal responsibility to take, and how much responsibility others should take.

In education, I think any teacher is automatically a contributor. So long as we take individual responsibility, and realize that what we do is very important (and not make the mistake of feeling self-important) for our students, we’ll be a contributor. In simply choosing a job where we are in a service type of position, we are contributing.

I was speaking with a friend years back, explaining to her how I had offended this waitress I worked with. I explained how I had said , “I don’t want to be a waitress my whole life,” and how another waitress, overhearing what I was saying to another young co-worker, defensively butted in and asked “why?” I immediately felt defensive myself, because what I had said wasn’t meant to pertain to anyone but myself. I hadn’t thought how it might sound to someone else standing nearby. The older waitress waited while I searched for an answer, and all I could come up with at that moment was that I wanted to do something more with my life. The other waitress stalked off, not satisfied with my answer. In explaining the situation to my friend, she didn’t understand my reasoning, either. She and I were currently working together, and I was trying to explain why what I said to the waitress shouldn’t be offensive. There is just a certain mindset that people who become teachers have that we need to do something more, give something back, to work a job that makes us feel like we’re making a difference. When I was in junior high, my best friend at that time totally understood. We both talked about becoming teachers “when we grew up,” and we both did just that. There is something about doing a job that is about a little more than making money, or chasing goals or attaining small scale rewards. I never did make my friend or that waitress understand what I meant, but at least I tried.

Reading this chapter summed up what I meant to say better than I ever could. I have a desire to be a contribution. To have the importance of my career not be everything I am, though it is a huge part of me. My contribution is determined by me, and I can give anything I want. The great thing is, as a young educator, I have a long road ahead, much to contribute and keep contributing, and a long way to grow.