tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1339910176549966696.post4478429850870479564..comments2023-06-16T09:50:28.728-04:00Comments on I am a teacher et cetera: Killing Them Softly?Jennifer Wardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01459363843692965338noreply@blogger.comBlogger17125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1339910176549966696.post-63736105913422964532008-04-15T19:51:00.000-04:002008-04-15T19:51:00.000-04:00This comment has been removed by the author.The J-manhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17568493366260794283noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1339910176549966696.post-90253625179960715982008-04-11T20:56:00.000-04:002008-04-11T20:56:00.000-04:00J-man - great hint Josh! Where will I find your b...J-man - great hint Josh! Where will I find your blog?Jennifer Wardhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01459363843692965338noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1339910176549966696.post-66764664860756611152008-04-11T20:48:00.000-04:002008-04-11T20:48:00.000-04:00Ms Ward!I started a blog. Take a guess!Here's your...Ms Ward!<BR/>I started a blog. Take a guess!<BR/><BR/>Here's your hint:<BR/>hsoj si ygrene<BR/>(read it like ada would :)The J-manhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17568493366260794283noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1339910176549966696.post-80785471338119052972008-03-08T18:47:00.000-05:002008-03-08T18:47:00.000-05:00Great post! I always wondered if teachers knew wha...Great post! I always wondered if teachers knew what standards they had to teach, why they couldn't fit in to what students desired to learn. If they were learning something that they felt relevant, they would be more engaged. It sounds like your open discussion actually opened their minds and freed them from letting these thoughts fester and interfere with learning.loonyhikerhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05378360383088143368noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1339910176549966696.post-15058002413149741052008-03-03T09:43:00.000-05:002008-03-03T09:43:00.000-05:00Laura,I think my perspective is very much informed...Laura,<BR/><BR/>I think my perspective is very much informed by my background as well. I, too, attended a very small, almost rural high school, graduating with only 99 students. I had a very similar experience to yours.<BR/><BR/>Now I find myself teaching in a much larger high school (approximately 1800 students total) with a defined honors curriculum, which I teach in. I teach the tenth grade honors World Literature course which leads most students to an AP course like your daughter had.<BR/><BR/>I think the foundations are important (I teach grammar and punctuation throughout the semester), but what I've found is that it is important to help show students why those foundational skills are important to higher-order thinking tasks. <BR/><BR/>It's too bad that your daughter felt she was moving backward with her first college comp. class. I hope her other literature courses were more engaging. =)Jennifer Wardhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01459363843692965338noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1339910176549966696.post-6146589511068321152008-03-02T21:52:00.000-05:002008-03-02T21:52:00.000-05:00I grew up in a very small town, one high school, 1...I grew up in a very small town, one high school, 110 in my graduating class. There weren't enough of us to track, really. I remember drearily rerunning the rules of punctuation every single year from 6th grade on ... and I got it the first time. Some of my classmates never did, even to the bitter end.<BR/><BR/>My daughter attended a school with a good honors program and did move past all that stuff. In her senior year her Eng. Lit AP teacher worked the daylights out of the class. They read more stuff, and harder stuff, and wrote way more essays, than I did in my college honors Eng. Lit class. She ate it up. Freshman year of college she hit the wall with a teacher who went all the way back to automatically marking off points for passive voice ... yes, even for "his work was included in X anthology". With a 5 on her AP exam, I don't know why she had to take that class except that all students have to be tortured equally, I guess.Laura(southernxyl)https://www.blogger.com/profile/02880277733341078157noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1339910176549966696.post-89532103006098762802008-03-01T22:59:00.000-05:002008-03-01T22:59:00.000-05:00Hey there, Forgive me, but you've been tagged for ...Hey there, <BR/><BR/>Forgive me, but you've been tagged for what I think you'll find to be a cool meme. Stop by, you'll see it there. <BR/><BR/>Hope all is well. <BR/><BR/>tamaraAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1339910176549966696.post-88998496122956583252008-03-01T16:29:00.000-05:002008-03-01T16:29:00.000-05:00Clix - I'm not sure that the students were frustra...Clix - I'm not sure that the students were frustrated simply with learning information they were not interested in, though I'm sure that is in part where the conversation started. Their real frustration came out when they talked about being asked to repeatedly do the same task, in this case circle metaphors in poems, in third grade, fifth, sixth, seventh, eighth, and so on, without taking it a step further. Their frustration came with repeating the same foundational steps year after year without moving forward and engaging in the higher order thinking skills required of analysis and interpretation. <BR/><BR/>My students seemed to be asking why such discrete tasks were important, which as you suggest, would be more meaningful if teachers shared not just their expectations for learning, but helped students make connections between the learning activity and the skills the activity is designed to develop within the student. I agree with you that it is an important skill for students to navigate the expectations of others; however, I am suggesting that this should not be the only skill developed by the activities we plan for our students.Jennifer Wardhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01459363843692965338noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1339910176549966696.post-13623946838393102122008-03-01T12:11:00.000-05:002008-03-01T12:11:00.000-05:00What I'm hearing from your report of your students...What I'm hearing from your report of your students' discussion is that they are frustrated because schools don't teach them what they want to learn. They seem to think that mastering current facts, problems, and solution theories is not "real learning." <BR/><BR/>In this, they're wrong, but the mistake is understandable. Teachers need to be much more open with students about the work they do, the skills they are attempting to master, and the utility of those skills.<BR/><BR/>The ability to figure out what others expect of you is an important skill not only in school (and later a career), but in any sort of relationship - work, romance, friendship, family, etc. Students who try to ignore this will harm themselves.Clixhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04460380696875928585noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1339910176549966696.post-76826328695816918882008-02-28T19:57:00.000-05:002008-02-28T19:57:00.000-05:00Whew! Fellow blogger Joanne Jacobs posted part of...Whew! Fellow blogger Joanne Jacobs posted part of my article on her site, and it's stimulated quite the conversation. Check it out at <A HREF="http://joannejacobs.com/2008/02/28/carnival-of-education-44/" REL="nofollow">joannejacobs.com</A>.Jennifer Wardhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01459363843692965338noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1339910176549966696.post-80255071477482789882008-02-28T19:07:00.000-05:002008-02-28T19:07:00.000-05:00Dawn-Thanks for your perspective! I've actually h...Dawn-<BR/>Thanks for your perspective! I've actually had a number of students over the past two years who were homeschooled up until high school, but then transitioned into our district. I've had a number of interesting conversations about the differences and similarities between learning in these two environments. <BR/><BR/>John- <BR/>I think you're right. Plato/Socrates had some similar reactions to education during his time, his students most certainly would have too. I also like how you question literature. This is my hope for students. I hope they approach literature with a critical and questioning eye. I hope they walk out of my classroom knowing that there are no easy answers to interpreting literature, it is an individual and personal process (and I also agree Hawthorne can be a bit tedious at times, but Dickens is worse!).Jennifer Wardhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01459363843692965338noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1339910176549966696.post-86425986951261832502008-02-28T18:51:00.000-05:002008-02-28T18:51:00.000-05:00Plaz and Jennifer -Thanks for stopping by! Very c...Plaz and Jennifer -<BR/>Thanks for stopping by! Very cool to make some new connections.<BR/><BR/>Penelope-<BR/>I'm in the same boat. I've been trying this semester to embrace more of conversations that happen in the moment rather than move past them to keep all my classes at the same spot. I am really struggling this semester with finding that balance between what is required and what is useful, between teaching content and teaching skills. This seems to be a problem that many educators seem to be struggling with these days given how many blog posts are out there about teaching for the 21st century. Unfortunately, I have more questions than answers!Jennifer Wardhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01459363843692965338noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1339910176549966696.post-43281731486548418272008-02-28T16:20:00.000-05:002008-02-28T16:20:00.000-05:00Well... not news, I am sure the pupils of Plato ha...Well... not news, I am sure the pupils of Plato had some of the same complaints. <BR/> <BR/>ranting . . . <BR/>My own, reflected by your students, is the constant search for unstated meaning in poetry and some poesy): as I asked one teacher circa 1961, if the author meant that why the blue blazes did he not SAY that? It would be years before I would hear Arthur Clarke admit that he did not know <B>what</B> he was trying to say in <I>2001: A Space Odyssey.</I> I also asked why an occasional Ogden Nash was not merely belittled but not allowed at all. And spare me the Victorian-era novelists - Hawthorne was a decent writer, but more than three pages describing the blackness of a kettle is an obvious padding for the sake of the paid-for-by-word work. And Shakespeare could be used to show some large differences society has undergone (his audience found nothing strange about <I>Othello</I> nor do today`s youth, but it was strange to my mother`s generation to have an African hero, even a tragic one) - and spare us the pieties about his "writing for the ages" - like Homer, his writing survives because he gave audiences what they (and the powers-that-were, as with Richard III vs Henry) wanted and did it better than 99.97 percent of authors, not because he was writing for 21st-century teens.John Ahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00801684602403824157noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1339910176549966696.post-70357449303516257532008-02-27T20:06:00.000-05:002008-02-27T20:06:00.000-05:00I homeschool my kids at least in part because of t...I homeschool my kids at least in part because of the issues outlined in your post. When I first started the homeschooling I thought I was a radical thinker. The more I branch out into reading teacher blogs, education blogs, parents blogs, and now accoutns of what students think the more I realize there are a whole lot of us out there that are frustrated with conventional education.Dawnhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05895897568006441289noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1339910176549966696.post-7908712856021880932008-02-27T11:12:00.000-05:002008-02-27T11:12:00.000-05:00Hey, another Jennifer Ward! That's my name too, a...Hey, another Jennifer Ward! That's my name too, and I teach 7/8th grade social studies. I just started blogging too so I'm trying to find more resources out there!Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1339910176549966696.post-47149231898582905802008-02-26T18:03:00.000-05:002008-02-26T18:03:00.000-05:00I admire what you're doing as it is to try and bri...I admire what you're doing as it is to try and bring that kind of education in the classroom. It's a balance I'm having a ton of trouble finding myself...I don't know how to talk about without sounding like someone whining about curriculum, but the kids are right. They jump through hoops for 12 years and that is somehow supposed to prepare them for the real world? Not so much.Penelopehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05577413050164476723noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1339910176549966696.post-32862948754274374362008-02-25T22:22:00.000-05:002008-02-25T22:22:00.000-05:00Hey, Ms. Ward, I had no idea you were doing this! ...Hey, Ms. Ward, I had no idea you were doing this! I actually found your blog through your comment on Arthus's. (I've posted a long comment on Arthus's blog about this topic).<BR/><BR/>I've subscribed to your blog and will be reading back entries.<BR/>-Michael Plasmeier http://theplaz.comThePlazhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11076313077545315102noreply@blogger.com