Because with the wind chill it's 9 degrees outside. Yesterday I had all five classes, excepting my bio lab. This meant that I was on campus from 8am to 9pm. Tuesdays might be rough. In my educational foundations class, our first assignment is to write about our "touchstone." ...? Seriously? What? I have no idea. I wish I could say by what standard I measure my own teaching values... but I don't have teaching values yet. I've never taught anything. The second assignment is to write our goals for becoming better educators? The only problem is that I have no idea what those goals are and I have no idea how to fudge this. A new problem entirely, for me.
My evening literary research class is already interesting. Questions I would like to have answered: Why have you read The Catcher in the Rye so many times? Why did you leave so early? I'm pretty sure that Lyle Hall is not open past 8pm.
I have an idea that might help you in your early education classes. I, too, found these assignments to be flaky at best. Now that I'm the type of person that potentially could give these types of assignments, I'll encourage you this way:
ReplyDeleteThink about what you believe about how people learn. It's easy to think about learning than it is about teaching. Assignments that focus you (the preservice teacher) on teaching run the risk of creating a generation of teachers who develop philosophies of teaching without much consideration about how they, their friends, and their neighbors learn. And not just academic stuff...how do we learn not to date people like that ever again? How do we learn what routines work for us so that we don't lock our keys in our car? How do we find answers to our questions about converting a recipe for 6 into a recipe for 9?
That was a huge breakthrough in my own schooling when I was able to write feeling like I actually DID know something about education even though I had never taught.
I miss you!