Bringing it all together

I’m so glad this reading was left for the final post. Though long, it really tied everything we have learned together.  A lot of different authors came to mind; One in particular was Johnson. As we know Johnson argues that we must talk explicitly about issues of privilege, power and difference. Shor argues a very good point that right from the start is important for teachers to encourage their students to question why they go to school. This discussion allows the students to share their thoughts and express opinions on how they feel towards school. “ This would set a questioning tone, telling the children that you trust them and that they are intelligent” (1). Trust is key in a classroom and being able to discuss, as Johnson says, “the issues of power, privilege and difference,” there is already a strong bond formed in the class for a successful year ahead.

I was quickly reminded of that time in class when Dr. Bogad gave us all that question and answer “assignment” and we had to put everything away and answer a worksheet on the reading, when Shor stated “ If the students’ task is to memorize rules and existing knowledge without questioning the subject matter or the learning process, their potential for critical thought and action will be restricted” (2). We all simply took the paper and wrote down as many answers as we could find, assuming that we read the article, knew what it was about and went to it. None of us questioned why we were answering the questions, or thought the questions were irrelevant while finishing the assignment. Relating that back to Oakes and how tracking exists in schools and to Finn with Literacy with an Attitude, if students are not allowed to question and explore the learning process at various academic levels, then how will they ever be able to fully appreciate learning?

I know that I said that I have had many other favorite readings, but this one really brought home everything we have done with this class over the semester. I thought that when Shor mentions that the teachers are the ones who make various decisions to teach the traditional curriculum; that they do what they can to teach creatively and critically. I LOVED this. I can remember in high school my history teacher would create such interesting ways of teaching different decades or have us create a project to help us understand why we had different wars. Rather follow a boring “turn to page 117, read the chapter, a test next week” sort of syllabus, she would find maps and videos to show us how the wars started and just really brought the class to life with her lessons. I feel that's a big part as to why I want to be a teacher; to make learning enjoyable for students. Shor had many great points and many of the previous authors we have read all connect back to this article. This past semester has truly prepared me to take the next step on the path to becoming a teacher. I found this link that shares different teachers ideas on how they make teaching enjoyable and really bring their students together as a class. I feel as a class we can definetly all relate to this article and have had different "teacher" experiences this semester, with our service learning projects and even outside of school . This semester flew by and I absolutely loved every class we had. It's weird this is the last post, i've gotten so used to blogging haha! Good luck out there future teachers xox!