This blog was created as a place for reflection and discussion by the graduate students of ENG-W 590 at Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis. We hope that what we write here provokes reflection, challenges theory and inspires authentic teaching practice.
I feel I'm most failing to "expose students to conversations that already exist." Sure, that's happening, but do my students realize it because they haven't been told it outright? And how do I recover from that error, oversight, whatever?
The biggest 'hitch' in the whole PP thing is, truly, how much it necessitates an understanding of self. My students don't seem to get that there is so much in the world SO MUCH BIGGER than they--ideologies and whatnot, and that me standing in front of them saying, "who you are is valuable" is an expression of a certain understanding of the universe.
It's strange, but in my limited teaching experience, I've found that with students, you kind of need to go through the back door in order to get to them. If I were to tell my juniors that their experiences are worth writing about or that they are valuable members of society, I'm pretty sure they would give me that "Oh, Ms. G is optimistic...isn't that sweet?" look. Sixteen year-olds are pretty skeptical. I find that if I can give them readings or have certain discussions with them in which they lead themselves to the very same conclusion (which we teachers have been plotting all along) that they are more likely to be affected by the experience because they believe they were the catalyst of the epiphany rather than the force of my sometimes wide-eyed optimism. Does that make sense? I don't know.
The other thing is sometimes giving them a loose prompt for a reflective writing assignment will sometimes light the fire underneath them too.
2 comments:
I feel I'm most failing to "expose students to conversations that already exist." Sure, that's happening, but do my students realize it because they haven't been told it outright? And how do I recover from that error, oversight, whatever?
The biggest 'hitch' in the whole PP thing is, truly, how much it necessitates an understanding of self. My students don't seem to get that there is so much in the world SO MUCH BIGGER than they--ideologies and whatnot, and that me standing in front of them saying, "who you are is valuable" is an expression of a certain understanding of the universe.
It's strange, but in my limited teaching experience, I've found that with students, you kind of need to go through the back door in order to get to them. If I were to tell my juniors that their experiences are worth writing about or that they are valuable members of society, I'm pretty sure they would give me that "Oh, Ms. G is optimistic...isn't that sweet?" look. Sixteen year-olds are pretty skeptical. I find that if I can give them readings or have certain discussions with them in which they lead themselves to the very same conclusion (which we teachers have been plotting all along) that they are more likely to be affected by the experience because they believe they were the catalyst of the epiphany rather than the force of my sometimes wide-eyed optimism. Does that make sense? I don't know.
The other thing is sometimes giving them a loose prompt for a reflective writing assignment will sometimes light the fire underneath them too.
Let me know how it goes for you, Jackie!
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