This week, we had two assignments that asked us to think about why we want to teach. One was a slideshow of images that illustrated why we want to teach. The other was an educational autobiography asking a LOT of questions about what made me feel safe and secure or most at war with my school, the teachers and actions that influenced my view on the role of teachers, the aims of education, and my decision to teach.
I have been asked to write a paper on the pedagogy I plan to implement, but never have I been asked so repeatedly in so many different ways why I want to be a teacher. As I thought about my reasons and experiences that led me to this decision, I learned a lot about what has really influenced my thinking on education and teaching and what I have seen that I definitely do not want to replicate. I thought a lot about what has led me to this path all weekend. And, interestingly enough, my other classes--non-ed classes included--helped me solidify my reasons for teaching.
I am taking a full course load this quarter in order to meet a certain number of post-bac credits to put me ahead a notch on the pay scale. All of my classes are so interdisciplinary I have a hard time remembering which class and its readings and discussions helped me formulate specific thoughts in my brain. It's a strange experience for me. I have never had a harder time keeping what is occuring in my different classes separate.
I do not think this is a bad thing. I think it is a good way to learn, but it is unnerving at the same time. Obviously, I have not experienced interdisciplinary education that is so interdisciplinary before. It is exciting that I see issues raised in all my classes that are relevant in at least one other class. It makes me more motivated to learn to an almost damaging extent. I have found it harder to keep my professional life as a student separate from my personal life and have sacrificed some elements of my personal life in order to learn more about what it is we're studying in class. I hope I develop some new way of controlling myself or I will eventually disappoint my husband.
I have to ask myself though, is this new interdisciplinary experience due simply to the way I am being taught and the way I am learning, or is due more to the fact that I am now viewing education in a different light because I have the lens of a teacher now, not just a student? It could also be that education encompasses so many disciplines, knowledge, methods, and ideas that now that I know how all-encompassing it is, there is no way for me to view new knowledge as separate from the way I view education as a teacher.
Well, my professor wanted me to think and ask hard questions of myself as an educator, and that is definitely happening. It kind of hurts my brain.
Can Messy Learning Make A Comeback?
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The “Test and Punish” era of education mainstreamed by the “No Child Left
Behind Act” of 2002 is ongoing, but because of initiatives like STEM
(Science, ...
11 months ago
I'd agree completely that it's not a bad thing to have courses blend - who ever decided that learning would be divvied up into discrete blocks that we assume students will just put back together when they're called upon to act upon their worlds?
ReplyDeleteI think that your final questions are essentially the same question, asked differently. They are questions about the purposes that students see in their learning. You are focused by a particular set of questions about who you'll soon be as a teacher, so yes, you're looking more closely and are moving out of the more passive student role, I'm sure.
But the exciting part for me is that none of your classes are narrowing instruction to the task of answering those questions directly.
Interdisciplinary classes engage you (I hope!) not in 'mastery' of isolated skills and content, but in big questions of meaning and purpose and values. That's a pretty different way of teaching than is done in many K-12 schools.
But what if kids would really engage if we stopped the 47 minute class periods and pushed them into problem solving and question posing and peering closely at real world issues?
What would happen then?