So these past few weeks have been exciting for me. I feel somewhat like my life is divided into two parts. I know that as a teacher I will have to maintain a professional life and do my best to make sure that seeps deeply into my personal life as well. I also now feel a divide between my two experiences. I had one year teaching in a Chinese high school classroom where I learned much over the course of the year (through many mistakes and small victories) about classroom management and lesson preparation. I could fill pages about what I learned, but I’ll keep this entry on topic for now.
This post is about my Chinese high school students. In the 2007-2008 school year I had between 1000 and 1200 10th and 11th graders. Obviously I didn’t get to know all of them on a personal level, but I can say I got know about 50 students pretty well, which is a percentage I can be proud of, given the impersonal nature of the classroom culture, the cross cultural shyness I fought against constantly, and the sheer overwhelming numbers. After one year back in America, away from my busy students (with far more pressing priorities than staying connected with a foreigner they may never see again), I am surprised that I have kept in touch with over 30 of my students, including helping three of them apply to US colleges this year (and all three of them are coming to renowned American universities in August! More about them later!).
Throughout this past school year, many of the students I knew the best were seniors, meaning they had 6+ day school weeks and no time for any fun while preparing for National College Entrance Exam, but still kept in touch. Now that the test is in the past, these students are more animated now than ever, looking for ways to spend their last summer before (most of them) they embark on their collegiate adventures. Through email, google chat, and skype, I have heard many different ambitions, futures, and goals. Eventhough I had the students only for a short time at that school, compared to their other teachers, I feel I got to know them well, but hearing about their futures adds more depth to this. I had one student, an earnest and curious, but focused boy, will go to school to become a jingcha, which is basically a police officer. I have one who will study art in a fantastic school in Guangzhou, one who wants become a city-planner, one who will go into health at a renowned school in Shanghai, and one that will attend a respectable maritime university in a charming Manchurian port town… I could go on with several more… so many different goals and dreams. I don’t see this as my hard work paying off, as I was just a lowly foreign teacher at their school, teaching the only class that they had no grade nor actual requirements (AND it actually conflicted with the rest of their busy curriculum!). What makes me feel good (and honored) is that I get the privilege to be a part of this. They eagerly tell me their exciting news and I feel excited for them. Just as they look forward to embarking on their paths, I look forward to hearing about it down the road and learning about academic journeys far from my own roots and foci. I love knowing that I will see some of them again, be in America or China, especially as they spread out around their vast country, maybe even the world! Also, I see them less and less as students and more and more as developing people. I like the word “evolving” though…
The older I get the less I see education as a specific set of skills. One of my favorite (and least orthodox) teachers from high school once told me that high school was somewhat like a test to see if we can make it in the real world. Granted, he was trying to talk some sense into me after panicking from my first “C” in a really competitive place, but he was sincere in his description of a system based on grades and evaluation. I will not argue that high school is not necessary, but I do distinguish education from high school now. No intellectual’s education should ever stop. I am always observing, considering, analyzing, and critiquing the many new concepts I come across every day. Furthermore, I am constantly revising my understandings, challenging them. Education IS ALL ABOUT evolving. “Seeing my students” at this time is a great image of evolution, and now, as I am nervous and ready to begin student teaching in Redford, Michigan, I am seeing with clarity that in addition to being a high school teacher, I want to be an educator!
Maybe I am lucky that in this stressful summer semester I have been shown such a valuable gem that only teachers can mine.
Thanks for reading,
Adam
Thursday, July 23, 2009
Friday, July 10, 2009
Into The Fire - Tweeting in class?
My original opinion of twitter, after seeing how many of my friends used it: A bunch of people shouting into the dark about whatever is on their mind, regardless of who, if anyone at all, will hear them...
Ashton Kutcher challenged CNN to a popularity contest on twitter this year. This was one of the first times I learned something about what twitter actually is, and it helped ensure my resolve to shun it as a trashy networking site. When I saw twitter show up on a class syllabus this semester as a location for my professors’ office hours, I groaned out loud. Just this week, as a requirement for one of my classes, I have signed up for twitter. A teacher talked briefly about the advantages of twitter in a classroom environment, which blew my mind. Again, my conservative fear of unleashing technology in the classroom paints a daunting picture of a chaotic classroom where kids are tweeting with each other rather than focusing in class. I see this as a higher tech scenario of my high school days (I admit it, I was a bit of a joker with the cell phone myself), when teachers consistently confiscated cell phones. I can only imagine today’s classroom where students must be text messaging each other constantly during class time. I will try not to be alarmed when I encounter this during my student observing/teaching in September.
What surprised me the most in class today was that I actually caught myself trying to imagine myself using twitter to facilitate discussions in my future classes. Two different videos brought this on: one where a second grade teacher use twitter to connect with another classroom in another school while teaching about technology and acceptable use, and one where a college class at University of Texas in Austin uses twitter in a lecture hall to facilitate a discussion for the entire class. Most of the students seemed to love it, praising twitter’s speed and efficiency in getting information to the large screen behind the professor and the fact that it can give students who might normally be shy, but with lots to say, a voice in class (I’ll overlook the blatant ethnic stereotype that immediately followed this declaration in the video). When there is a large class, it can be difficult for a teacher to include everyone in the discussion. I thought these clips were eye-opening, not just to how some of this new technology might be a useful tool for me in the classroom, but also that many different teachers of different age groups are already using it for a myriad of purposes. I started fantasizing about how I can use twitter in the classroom to bring authors, movements, questions, and other topics in literature to life for my students. One classmate mentioned a twitter account for Emily Dickenson, breathing new life (and possibly new relevance!) into her poetry via using various lines and quotes. My first reaction was to imagine what a twitter account for Dante Alighieri would be like. My second reaction was excitement, as I feel strongly about removing students from their everyday colloquial language, hopefully opening up different ways of using our incredible, dynamic language for expression.
But here comes the old dilemma: as I talked about it in my last post, how do I manage the Big Tweety Monster in the classroom? How do I keep my students more on task and less into social networking in the classroom? This is a different scenario than the one with impressionable second graders, who will likely listen more to lectures about acceptable (and even safe) use of technology.
Also, I hope my literature classes will be smaller than that lecture at University of Texas, and that I will have no more than 35 students. As much as I value giving the shy students more comfortable opportunities to speak out, personal interaction/face-to-face discussion is irreplaceable. I want my students to be able to learn from each other by discussing things while sitting in the same room, looking at each other. I don’t think I need to even start to explain why that skill will be helpful in so many ways throughout a lifetime. Communication lays immovable and vital at the core of any humanities class, and one mission of the humanities in education is to build both socially and mentally proficient members of society. I can not imagine feeling good about myself as a literature teacher if I let this priority go!
Any thoughts/ideas on how to apply something like twitter in the classroom, specifically for literature?
Thanks for reading!
-Adam
Ashton Kutcher challenged CNN to a popularity contest on twitter this year. This was one of the first times I learned something about what twitter actually is, and it helped ensure my resolve to shun it as a trashy networking site. When I saw twitter show up on a class syllabus this semester as a location for my professors’ office hours, I groaned out loud. Just this week, as a requirement for one of my classes, I have signed up for twitter. A teacher talked briefly about the advantages of twitter in a classroom environment, which blew my mind. Again, my conservative fear of unleashing technology in the classroom paints a daunting picture of a chaotic classroom where kids are tweeting with each other rather than focusing in class. I see this as a higher tech scenario of my high school days (I admit it, I was a bit of a joker with the cell phone myself), when teachers consistently confiscated cell phones. I can only imagine today’s classroom where students must be text messaging each other constantly during class time. I will try not to be alarmed when I encounter this during my student observing/teaching in September.
What surprised me the most in class today was that I actually caught myself trying to imagine myself using twitter to facilitate discussions in my future classes. Two different videos brought this on: one where a second grade teacher use twitter to connect with another classroom in another school while teaching about technology and acceptable use, and one where a college class at University of Texas in Austin uses twitter in a lecture hall to facilitate a discussion for the entire class. Most of the students seemed to love it, praising twitter’s speed and efficiency in getting information to the large screen behind the professor and the fact that it can give students who might normally be shy, but with lots to say, a voice in class (I’ll overlook the blatant ethnic stereotype that immediately followed this declaration in the video). When there is a large class, it can be difficult for a teacher to include everyone in the discussion. I thought these clips were eye-opening, not just to how some of this new technology might be a useful tool for me in the classroom, but also that many different teachers of different age groups are already using it for a myriad of purposes. I started fantasizing about how I can use twitter in the classroom to bring authors, movements, questions, and other topics in literature to life for my students. One classmate mentioned a twitter account for Emily Dickenson, breathing new life (and possibly new relevance!) into her poetry via using various lines and quotes. My first reaction was to imagine what a twitter account for Dante Alighieri would be like. My second reaction was excitement, as I feel strongly about removing students from their everyday colloquial language, hopefully opening up different ways of using our incredible, dynamic language for expression.
But here comes the old dilemma: as I talked about it in my last post, how do I manage the Big Tweety Monster in the classroom? How do I keep my students more on task and less into social networking in the classroom? This is a different scenario than the one with impressionable second graders, who will likely listen more to lectures about acceptable (and even safe) use of technology.
Also, I hope my literature classes will be smaller than that lecture at University of Texas, and that I will have no more than 35 students. As much as I value giving the shy students more comfortable opportunities to speak out, personal interaction/face-to-face discussion is irreplaceable. I want my students to be able to learn from each other by discussing things while sitting in the same room, looking at each other. I don’t think I need to even start to explain why that skill will be helpful in so many ways throughout a lifetime. Communication lays immovable and vital at the core of any humanities class, and one mission of the humanities in education is to build both socially and mentally proficient members of society. I can not imagine feeling good about myself as a literature teacher if I let this priority go!
Any thoughts/ideas on how to apply something like twitter in the classroom, specifically for literature?
Thanks for reading!
-Adam
Tuesday, July 7, 2009
Both Sides Now - Technology and the English Classroom
This question came up in my technology class: how do you plan on incorporating the use of modern technology into your future classroom? I thought it would be a simple question at first when I remembered my own high school English literature classrooms, but the more I thought about it, the more hazy it seemed.
Times are changing now, faster than ever, and it only seems that things will accelerate. Nine years ago, in 2000, I remember how the internet was just another possible tool for research while email was something that could be checked occasionally, but certainly not regularly. Oh, and using the internet required clogging my parents’ phone line, as we had dial-up. By 2003 I was checking my email everyday, by 2004 I was using social networking, Now, in 2009, all of my classes rely on the internet for either assignments, course materials, or both. If I go so much as half a day without access to email I fear that I may develop nervous rashes, like a coveting addict. In 2000, I did not have or want a cellular phone. Now, I am reliant on cell phone calls and text messaging, eagerly anticipating the time when I can get a blackberry to give myself even more regular email and internet access. Also, my 11 year-old nephew has had a cellular phone now for one year! My point is that I know that technology will continue to develop rapidly, and it would be foolish to even think I can accurately predict how I will be using it come 2012!
S0 how will I use technology in what I currently envision as my future classroom? I am struggling with this now, partly out of fear of the unknown, as I know technology is rapidly changing our classroom dynamics, and partly from what I remember in my English classes in high school. I remember in my high school English classes where my classes were all completely discussion based, some students took a "high tech" approach and relied on the web site sparknotes.com to not only substitute the reading (with the chapter summaries), but also used the discussion points as their own contributions for class. I know that whatever materials were available eight years ago are only tip of the iceberg for what is available now. Having access to such material can be great for students, especially with deeper readings like Faulkner, where treading through them can become a great chore. Students can use these resources honorably to help them navigate through dense readings, but just as easily, students can find ways to avoid doing the actual reading and the actual thinking by abusing these websites. Eventhough I can try to lift discussions above this by questioning students on their contributions to discussions, probing them to the core of their reasoning, I worry about ensuring that the students do the actual readings in the actual text. The actual text is irreplaceable. I can envision a future classroom where all students have their own phones/computers granting access both at home and in the classroom to all the robotic thinking the world wide web has to offer! As a future literature teacher, this is one of my greatest fears. I remember how hard it was sometimes to motivate myself to do the readings for class, and consequently, how easy taking the shortcut on sparknotes.com was!
One thing I venture to say that I actually know about the future is that my students will know more about technology and how to use it than I will. I am starting to understand that as a teacher, I will need to keep up with it and keep my fingers on the ever heating pulses of how high school teachers will incorporate this technology into the classroom. I will need to find a way to use technology to get my students on board with me to explore the literature with even more knowledge and background on the text than I ever had. I dream of technology supporting and inspiring my students to develop their critical thinking and open their minds, progressing them both as thinkers and writers. I can only begin to imagine the possibilities of what technology in the classroom can do for helping students understand the history, background, culture, and setting of the literary works we'll talk about in class. This way, technology could be used to excite and inspire the students while offering a much better background for understanding the texts than the simple lectures I got in high school. Still, the “old-fashioned” side of me is also the cynical side, and I see technology giving students too many ways around the intense practice that is required to truly benefit from a humanities class. This makes technology seem like something that must be harnessed, censored even. I observed a classroom in Redford, MI, where students permitted to use the computers in class were on a myriad of websites, ranging from the actual online assignments, further reading, facebook, and Wikipedia (the Paul Rudd page). I didn’t groan out loud, but I did foresee an uphill battle, and one that I will only come to understand better with more knowledge on the issue.
Concluding question: What roles should technology play in the literature classroom so that students' intellectual development is not stunted, yet we are still keeping with the times?
Adam
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