The Danger of a Single Story

I'm intrigued by this entire talk but a golden line for me is  "The single story creates stereotypes and the problem with stereotypes is not that they are untrue, but that they are incomplete.  They make one story become the only story."

This quote and Adichie's linking of stories with power makes me think of the stock media image of Urban Schools with "bad" students and "bad" teachers both in need of fixing and saving.  This is one story.  There are other stories, not just of hero students and teachers despite all of this, but of real teachers and students in Urban schools working very hard to do well and pass the tests, and of these same teachers and students working to go beyond the what the tests require.  The one story of  the media image of Urban Schools has to power to define what it means to be a "good teacher" or "good"student in Urban Schools.

Space

Yesterday I opened a workshop with a group of pre-service teachers using "Fire" by Judy Brown.

This is not the first time I've read the poem or even the first time I've used it in a workshop, but it still got me thinking, and thinking hard about the teacher I am and the teacher I want to be.

I want to be the teacher who creates that sheltered space between the logs.  That safe, breathing space; the open space that makes the fire - the learning- possible.

But surveillance sometimes sneaks in and I hold on too tightly.  I find myself asking "are they doing all of the assignments, or trying to sneak something by me?  Am I holding them accountable enough?  Am I leaving too much space?  So much that a gust of adolescence can come through and blow out the flame?"

Returning now to Brown's poem I am reminded that neither the log stacking or space making just happens.  Both require careful attention.  The space has to work with the fuel together to make fire.  The teacher has to be there to guide and make space for learning to happen all at the same time, and nudge lightly from time to time.

Blogging in School

With the semester coming to an end, I want to take a minute to reflect on how blogging, the big thing I added to my teaching this semester, went.  As with all first attempts, there are several things I would do differently, but the big thing I'm thinking, especially after reading and watching my students' digital reflections, is that I will do it again.

I assigned blog posts and responses once per week.  There was to be a post for each of our readings and then we had a series of inquiry posts to think about the projects we were working on.  These were all to be pretty informal.  My idea was that students would use their daybooks to collect thoughts for the posts (just as I have done for this one) and then craft the more public post from that.   Then, the students were to respond to each other on the blogs.

The big issue we ran into was responding.  I asked the students about it and as you can see here, the reasons why it wasn't happening ranged from feeling that it was pointless, to time, to others' not posting on time.  We worked some on that and it did get better, but it never got to where I wanted it to be.

I suspect this has to do with the authenticity of the blog writing to begin with.  I think if the students had had more choice in what was posted, responding would have made more sense.  In many ways, my request to post about readings was a surveillance move to see that reading was actually happening.  Lacy simply had students write responses in daybooks and then pick what they wanted to post once per week.  I think that might work better.  Also, I think I want to encourage a "creative" post that can lead to the ethnography project once per week earlier in the semester.  And then one of my students even suggested giving the theme for the week and letting the students pick their own readings.  I think some would LOVE this freedom and I'm seriously considering making it an option (if you don't like this reading, pick your own and share it) next time I teach this class.

In the end the students said they loved the blogging and that it taught them to work with and respond to their group members - and gave them a place to do it when they couldn't be face to face.  Not bad for a first attempt.  But, I want the blogs to do more.  I want them to truly become places where students think out loud with others.   That's what I'll be pondering as I move forward with this project.

Portfolios

Teachers as Writers

I'm sitting with my people, Writing Project TC's, thinking hard about writing and the teaching of writing.

In a discussion of issues in professional development, we were talking about keeping the salient idea of writing teachers being writers themselves and the difficulty with all that K-12 teachers are asked to do in a day, of keeping that idea front and center.

And then I realized, writer though I am, I've been writing less and less as the semester moves on.

One reason is that I am stuck on my book proposal.  But that's an excuse because my writing group has really been helping me.

Another reason has been the time I've been spending on student papers.  But, that's an excuse.

My NaNo piece hasn't gotten any attention.

I promised my students an inquiry blog post based on some things they were helping me think about that is still in my drafts.

So . . . am I a writer?

Yes.  I'm in a spot in my life where I'm doing a lot of personal journaling.   Stuff that I'm not at all interested in sharing right now.  I write everyday.  That is what makes me a writer.  And this is making me think hard about how we can make the teachers that are writers more visible.  And how we can make classroom space for the very important habit of writing that isn't necessarily to be shared.  In school, and as writers, we do eventually need to move from private to public, but I'm wondering how we can also value this private writerl-y-ness . . .

What's Up With Responding?

In my last post about mid-terms, I mentioned that my 1101 students had given me some important ideas about how the rest of our semester should go.  With that in mind, I'm going back to them again with a problem we are having in our class and hoping that in this space we can help each other out.

My students are not regularly responding to each other's blogs.  I even gave class time for this on Monday and flipping through blogs last night to add my two cents, I noticed that there wasn't much responding there. 

Responding to other's writing is a large part of this class and something that I really hoped the blog space would help with, but some how it's not.

Experience tells me that when my students aren't doing something that I've asked them to do, it's because they don't see the value of it, and if they don't see the value of it, it's because of something I've done or not done.

So . . . in a grand experiment, I'm using my own blog as our writing into the day and a place to practice some responding and think about the value of it.