Well, well. What a pleasant surprise to spent 10 minutes watching entertaining and thought-provoking videos rather than a couple of hours reading from our texts (although I do enjoy them). The SNL skit was funny, scary, intimidating and challenging. If we were all honest with ourselves, we know that there's a good chance we will live out this very scenario in real life....maybe not with an entire class but at least with a few students. How do we deal with students that think "France" is the answer to every question we ask? How do we deal with students that only know that Indiana Jones fought with snakes and miss the whole point of the Nazis? What about the students that don't know even the basics such as what countries are in Europe....much less where Europe is on a map? I'm not sure that SNL intended for anything past a humorous skit with this, but if I were to take away some lessons from this video, here is what I've got:
-so much of teaching is helping students learn to think (a comment that Seinfeld made at the beginning of class) rather than memorizing information for a test
-sometimes the trash can is a good place to put tests
-despite grand ideas of challenging students with deep, philosophical discussions about literature, life, writing, etc. we are instead going to have to pull down the map and tell them where Europe is
-even if dates won't be on the test, keep that to yourself
-buy stock in aspirin or whatever your drug of choice is and do everything possible to make sure there is a good stash of it in your desk
Now, for "What Teachers Make." First, let me say that I am a fan of the stylistic approaches that Def Poetry makes (although some of them are ridiculously inappropriate). Somehow they are able to take ideas that might cross the line into ultra-cheeziness and present it well- as we saw with this video. I love the idea that he is more concerned with the difference he makes as a teacher than the money he makes (b/c we all know its crap). I loved the fact that when he talked about calling home during dinner time, it was to report something positive rather than something negative. Surely we all are going into teaching knowing that we are going to teeter the line of poverty to do so and surely we all hold on to the hope that what we do is going to make a difference. But in all honesty, sometimes writing papers, reading textbooks, and going through this phase of the process causes us to lose sight of what the future holds. So this video was a good reminder that in the end, it will be worth it. It sounds cheezy and those of you who know me know that I hate the "cheese factor," but its true and its what I cling to when I get tired of all the work.
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7 comments:
I agree about the "cling factor." These are the types of things that get me pumped up and I have a feeling that I'm going to need to put them in my sunshine box.
I enjoyed watching the videos also, but now I blame Dr. Franklin for the procrastination of my I-search paper. I think I have ADD, ADHD or somehing!
Seinfield says it right from the beginning, so much of teaching is helping students learn to think.
I think that taking the time to teach students what we expect from them, how we teach and ways in which they can think a little bit deeper are things we can do to help get the responses we want from them.
I completely agree with Valerie about going the extra mile in our students case to ensure that they understand exactly what we want from them, too often I think students get lost because the teachers are unclear about what is expected.
Yes, I do think that we need to make sure that students know what we expect of them, but at the same time we don't want to do it in such a way that all they care about is giving us what we want and miss the whole process of learning that is involved. I don't really know how to balance that. Thoughts?
I agree! I know from my high school experience I was the master at only doing what my teacher required and figuring out what I could get away with in all my classes. So i know that my students will probably do the exact same thing! I'm thinking maybe a way to get around that is try to have two different aspects of major projects....like have certain definite guidelines for one aspect, and then give them points for creativity for the other aspect, and give them no guidelines at all for that part. I know that is kind of a jumbled idea, but hopefully it makes sense!
I would propose that creativity is the key Tracy.
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