Digital Is Crash and Burn
So here’s what happened: my class, “Teaching Reading,” was using Digital Is as a space for online discussion. I’ve reiterated in this class that I value the sense of public discussion. I am appreciative of the ways Digital Is brings my preservice students into the same digital space as the career teachers I continue to learn from. I value the notion that our dialogue is one that other teachers can infringe upon with new insight and ideas. Of course something something the best laid plans blah blah blah Digital Is moved to a new layout and my discussion system went bust-o.
And so my mid-semester quandary was one of deciding if I should lock up our discussion behind some closed online site elsewhere or find a new digital, public space for dialogue. I chose the egotistical route and moved the rest of the semester’s dialogue here, on my own blog. Each week, you’ll see a rambling post where I detail what I am struggling with in the class and where I pose a few questions for my students (who are obligated to respond – hi class!). Feel free to jump into the dialogue with them!
Vulnerable Wobbling
My colleague Cindy and I have been thinking a lot lately about growth, struggle, and identity. We are working from a model called Pose/Wobble/Flow, which you can read a bit more about over here.
One thing I’ve been wobbling with lately is confronting vulnerability and uncertainty within the classroom. My friend & mentor Travis instilled in me the value of articulating to students that it’s okay if teachers don’t know everything. See:
On Thursday, a group of students in the class led us through a writing exercise where we adapted a favorite poem or song. I chose this classic:
I was thrown for a loop when trying to adapt this at first – I think John Darnielle (aka the Mountain Goats) spins great portraits and vignettes. I like the concise way he turns a funny sounding title and opening verse into an impassioned condemnation of authority. Obviously, my adaptation has to do with this rapscallion:
The best ever dog in Fort Collins
The best ever dog in Fort Collins
was a small mutt that’d been digging holes since the summer.
Her name was Olive or Olivia Agadorus Garcia
and she walked ’round the lake every day.
The best ever dog in Fort Collins,
never actually caught a cat
but the most grisly kills – after weeks of practice
were a bird, and a rabbit, and another rabbit without a leg.
Olive believed in her heart that she was destined for hunting greatness.
So in the backyard she made prominent use of the running space
and prepared for her eventual takeover and escape.
This was how she got out
and how the fence was rebuilt to make it taller
and why her howls of frustration ring out in the night
and why she made plans to get even.
When you punish a canine for dreaming her dream
don’t expect her to thank or forgive you.
The best ever dog in Fort Collins
will in time both out-jump and outsmart you.
Hail Satan!
Hail Satan tonight!
Hail Satan!
Hail hail!
Yeah, I know that whole last “hail Satan” part came from the original … but if you’d met Olive you’d be cool with it.
In any case, I remember writing not-so-light-hearted poetry during the annual unit plan when I was a student many a year ago. I remember when it came to the “who wants to share” part of the class feeling the terrible top-of-the-rollercoaster mixture of fear and excitement about sharing my work. A part of me really wanted to. A part of me was firmly dead set against it.
And so, thinking about the young me, I am wobbling with: how do I get students to move beyond feelings of vulnerability within my classroom? There are strong voices in both of my classes and there are those that are often missing. Particularly within the context of teaching reading, how can I support students who may be feeling more dependent–wanting more models for teaching & curriculum development (as examples of dependent reading within the context of an upper division course)?
Likewise, there are lots of reasons for feelings of vulnerability to manifest within a classroom. Some come from being afraid of not knowing what the teacher or professor wants. Some from not knowing what your peers expect and feeling out of place. I realize I can be both intentionally and unintentionally vague in my class and in my expectations of the work I would like students to turn in; this creates vulnerability. What if you do the assignment wrong?* Part of limiting vulnerability can be seen as increased efforts of clearly articulating goals. But part of this, too, is guiding students to understand that they–as much as the teacher–can define what is correct or incorrect, when to share and when to remain silent, when to–as our course norms dictate–“step forward and step back.”
Anyways, that’s what I’m wobbling with. I am asking my students–in the comments below–to explain what they are wobbling with this week, or to respond to my own wobbling above.
* “doing it wrong” is a socially constructed conceit and one I think about with regards to technology often.
Wobbles for the Week, Month, and Semester…
I am starting to feel like I am in a constant state of wobble, I am stressed beyond belief that I have not been placed for Student Teaching yet, I have a Year Long Plan due on Wednesday, an oral presentation due on Nov. 21st (I have not even started on it), and two group projects for two different classes in which I don’t have time to meet with said groups but I will attempt to find the time anyways. I am also trying to balance my time to get to three different schools within PSD throughout the week and make it to all of my classes, remember to eat (happens less than you would think) and the laughable part is I am still trying to convince myself that I can make it to the gym and/or read a book of my choice at some point during my week. So, those are my “wobbles” about my life…
As far as my teaching wobbles, I am worried that when I am teaching reading in my upcoming EDUC 450 practicum placement I won’t know how to really reach the students and get them to the place I need them to be by the end of the lesson. I am teaching a short story and focusing on point of view, I need to have a pre-assessment, a lesson, and a post-assessment all in 1 83 minute class period. Oh, did I mention these were 9th graders who rarely participate… What am I supposed to do? I am planning on reading the whole story together in class (there goes an hour) just so I know they read it at least once (and their books are a class set that can’t leave the classroom so I have to read it with them in class). This is sounding kind of ranty so I’m gonna stop there. Point is this semeseter I am a Weeble; I weeble and I wobble, but I won’t fall down.
In recent weeks I have been wobbling with some of the assignments that are assigned within the education field and the level at which those need to be completed. I feel as if teaching is greatly improved with a certain level of planning, however practicing these skills seems to be very superficial throughout the education program. While classes in the “real world” will mean teachers can plan for a specific class, with specific students in mind, the education program asks students to plan in a way that represents an idealized version of a classroom that we are supposedly going to be moving into. I find it difficult to find value in planning for an ideal classroom, because in the real world there will be no ideal classroom, there will be the classroom that we teach in. I understand the need to teach planning strategies, but I feel like the way it is done is more for the professors than for the students in the college class. If that is the case don’t tell me things like, “this is mainly for you,” because if you do I will write lessons that I can understand and explain to someone and not lessons that you want me to write. I don’t think I will ever write down a full mini-lesson to the extent that I am asked to do for assignments in class. There is no need for me to write down in what ways I will assess student work, I will just do those things, mind you this is just one example. Also where paragraphs are written now, I can remind myself what we are doing with one or two sentences on a sticky note or piece of paper. I guess my question is how many teachers actually write out the mini lessons to the degree that we as students are asked to do in the real world? Maybe my notion that teachers don’t is wrong and I will need to continue to do what is asked of me now in the future as a teacher, I just worry mostly about the time that I will have to put that much detail into my lessons every time. This may sound selfish, but I want to have a life outside of teaching and outside of my job. Therefore in conclusion I am wobbling about the practicality of the education program that I am currently involved in. This seems like such a negative post, but I really have learned a lot throughout the program and I am sure I will learn even more as I progress, I just wonder how many of these practices will be carried forward into the real thing.
First! (?)
Vulnerability is a double-edged sword. It can be a fulcrum for immense growth, but it can also devastate our self-confidence. The story of young Wobbling!Antero made me think of my own time as a young Wobbling!Jenna in high school. English class was the one place where I was willing to make myself vulnerable in front of my peers. One of the most socially-ruinous yet proudest moments of my high school career was getting overexcited during a round-robin reading of Allen Ginsberg’s “Howl”. I was completely convinced the only way to read “Howl” was at a shouting-level:
“Moloch whose mind is pure machinery! Moloch whose blood is running money! Moloch whose fingers are ten armies! Moloch whose breast is a cannibal dynamo! Moloch whose ear is a smoking tomb!”
But as proud as I was of this moment, of making my voice heard, there were a million other moments I said nothing, out of fear: of failure, of social embarrassment. These are fears that everyone struggles with, the entire course of their lives. Being a teacher means you’re crazy enough to do it every day, to put yourself out there in front of a group of people over and over again, and to try to get other people to try to do the same.
After my teaching group presented on Tuesday, we all expressed concerns to each other that we hadn’t “done it right,” that we’d failed, that we’d get a bad grade. Given a re-do, I’m sure we’d do a lot of things differently, but I couldn’t help but remember all the times that Antero’s encouraged us to screw up our student teaching, to take chances, to be willing to fail, and perhaps to embrace ambiguity. As future teachers of language and literature–two things notoriously elusive and amorphous–we should be particularly well-suited to appreciating and embracing ambiguity, right?
I know we all want to “do well,” to get that perfect 4.0 GPA and prove that we’re successful, intelligent college graduates, but I can’t help but think about how once we get that teaching license, no one cares if we got a 2.5 in college or a 3.965. That gives us quite a bit of leeway to fall and pick ourselves back up. Nothing can be gained if we don’t risk failure.
My wobble this week (and arguably the whole semester) has been trying to create a balance between faith, school, and my life in general. Many people rely on me to get things done, and my teachers require me to get mountains of homework done. The wicked combination of these responsibilities makes it difficult for me to accomplish anything to the best of my abilities. I’ve only placed my whole heart into my job because it is the only work that I do that doesn’t haunt me at home. It’s also disheartening when I work/study my butt off for a grade that is par. I know that the grade doesn’t matter much in the long run (as long as it is a passing grade), but this revelation certainly grants me my future students perspective.
What if students have a life like mine, where their existence is a balancing act of high expectations from all people in their lives? How am I supposed to hold my students accountable for their school work with a clear conscience knowing that they are fulfilling far more important responsibilities? What if Tim can’t engage in class because he was up til the wee hours of the night taking care of his three siblings while his single mom is out working her third job?
Maybe I’m only thinking of 1% of the population. What about the other 99% of students that are capable of balancing their 21st century stress? I’m not sure what I will do with these thoughts, but I do feel like there is some degree of unnecessary stress in everybody’s lives that draws focus from more meaningful matters.
I’ve been given room to think a lot this semester. But I find myself struggling with making these thoughts concrete. I feel like I’m learning what it is I want to learn, but sometimes I wonder how I can apply all these things. I’m worried that they might just spill out of my head eventually, being pushed out as new things come my way here. Because of this sometimes I struggle with the readings for this class. They seem really abstract to me. I like learning about specific classroom situations, and comparing those. But it sort of reminds me of a parent or someone telling me what to do and how to do it. To be cliche, you never really learn until you experience it, so maybe I’ll take some of these things I’m reading and learning to heart, but I also wonder how much of it will actually stick… Am I getting my money’s worth here? I feel like true, solid critical thought is the best sort of education money can buy because I am able to think for myself, and that actually expands my mind to continue building on everything I actually do jam into my brain through some of these educational texts. I have this vision in my mind of how I want to run my classroom, but I’ll never know until I’m there. I feel like I have some good ideas… but will they actually get through to kids? My biggest worry is that I’ll stumble into my classroom unprepared, dazed, and confused because I immerse myself in the content, the poetry, the words, because that’s really what I’m all about here… I’m just trying to get a job as much as I hate to say it. I think I’d be a good teacher though. I have a high social awareness but I feel like this too makes me vulnerable as I may become overwhelmed with the amount of young minds I’m trying to provide the tools of knowledge for. So I guess in short, I’m not really struggling. I’m just contemplating… really… confusedly.
I find this wobble interesting because every student feels vulnerability in the classroom when speaking aloud but some are able to overcome that and fully participate while others are not. I have no problem admitting that I would be considered “a voice missing from the class” but do not see that changing anytime soon. I contribute in smaller class discussions but never in full class discussions for one main reason. I have no trouble standing in front of a group of middle schoolers, high schoolers or even my peers to give a presentation. My biggest issue in speaking aloud in large class discussions is thinking on my feet. I feel like I cannot get the wording correct on what I want to say or cannot put my thoughts into words quick enough. In smaller group discussions, it tends to be more informal amd we stay on the same topic for longer with less people contributing so i can keep up with the discussion and formulate what I wish to say in my head. A method I can think of to help with vulnerability is giving students a chance to write some of their thoughts then ask them to contribute but tell students they will ave a discussion in class that comes from their writing so they should write something they could be willing to say aloud in class. Working in smaller groups helps with vulnerability because the pressure is not there to impress your teacher. I personally do not reccommend forcing students to participate because usually quiet students spend all class formulating what they want to say mentally instead of actively listening and miss everything from the entire class period but yay they participated?? (sarcasm….) Creating a classroom community where everyone feels comfortable to particpate is another part of everyone getting over their classroom vulnerabilities. A method my english teacher used for fishbowls I found was effective. Making fishbowl a two day activity whether that is two half class periods or two full class periods since after quieter more vulnerable feeling students see how it is done, they feel more comfortable about participating.
Before I begin, I’d like to address the significance of Jenna’s comment. I really like the last paragraph, especially the section that states, “Nothing can be gained if we don’t risk failure.” I completely agree with this statement. When it comes to vulnerability in the classroom, I sometimes have to remind myself what the purpose of me sitting in that room is. Why am I there? To learn. To improve my knowledge and ability to educate young minds. One of the obstacles that I faced was speaking up in class. Even if I knew the answer, no one wanted to go first. That’s just how it was. Unless the teacher called on you directly, it was an unspoken rule that you waited until you were prompted directly. I used the same sentiment that Jenna stated when dealing with this issue. I would rather take a risk and open myself up to failure than not try at all. That’s why when we did the activity Antero discussed above, I chose to share my rewritten poem first. I took a chance, even though I felt I did the activity incorrectly, because I felt that by demonstrating my own interpretation it would open up the discussion to others. Sometimes you have to take the chance in order to give others the courage to share their own ideas. I do also, however, wobble with ensuring I am clear enough in my instructions to receive adequate participation. Similar to what Tyler discussed, I am often times unsure of assignment directions and teacher expectations. Unless they are clearly outlined I fear that I will not complete activities to my teachers’ satisfaction. I want to be able to be clear in my expectations without limiting my students to be creative and flexible with assignment guidelines. How do you find that balance? How do you provide guidelines to students that demonstrate what is expected while still allowing them the freedom to take the assignment in any direction they choose?
My wobble currently has to do with my EDUC 350 class. I feel like I’m having a hard time connecting my with students, and establishing a relationship with them. I have been in their classroom since the beginning of September, and I don’t feel like they trust me enough to ask me questions or talk to me. I feel like I am just sitting there most of the time, wondering if I should jump in, walk around when they are given an activity, or ask them questions about their work. I don’t know why I have been so hesitant to dive in and just get to know them. I have a shy personality, and I really don’t want that to hold me back in the field of teaching, especially when it comes to relationships with students, so I know it’s something I need to work on. hopefully this wobble will work itself in time.
My wobble with this class, and the semester in general, is dealing with trying to decipher where I stand with my grade for the course and balancing time between working, staying sane, and school. I’ve struggled with this because it seems that my time has been stretched thin and I feel guilty about taking time for myself because there is so much school work to take care of. The fact that I work and go to school full time has restricted me from giving the attention that I feel is necessary to being an engaged student. My bills have to get paid, so my job is always my primary priority and often wears me out to the point that school work is always started around 11pm and,if I don’t pass out, gets completed around 1 or 2 in the morning. This isn’t what I would want my students to have to deal with. My wobble is: As an educator stepping into the game for the first time, how do I allow students to have a lighter workload without sacrificing their education? Is it possible to be an effective teacher that uses a portion of their class time to work on things that could be done as homework?
My wobble is my life. I am so confused between what I think want to do and what everyone else wants me to do. Have I been putting off my praxis test because I don’t have the time? Or am I putting it off because I truly, in my heart, do not want to be a teacher? Am I nervous or am I scared? There is a difference. Nervous means you want to do it; scared means you don’t want to do it. I am in a constant battle of honework. Do I have the time and I am just not utilizing it? I don’t know. I think I am in denial. I am wobbly. I have many projects due within the next five weeks and have no idea when I will have the time to be creative.
My wobble right now is life and school. I have two jobs so I’m trying to make them both work to the point where I can keep school at the most important. But recently that has been hard. So I feel myself falling behind and its frustrating because I want my focus to mainly be on school. I feel especially wobbly when I realize how much time I have left in this semester (not that much!) and how I will get everything done in the right amount of time. I have been working on it though to cut back on work so I can make sure I succeed in what I really want to be doing!
My perpetual wobble is to put myself out there….in a large group setting…in person. Throw me in an online forum, and I will post until the cows come home (a very long time for someone from San Francisco). However, once I am in the classroom, and I know that everyone is listening (or pointedly not) and judging (if only in my head) I become intensely put off the idea of sharing my ideas aloud. Ironically, I have always been told I would make a good teacher and genuinely enjoy the tutoring or teaching I have done. Yet I purposefully avoid being the center of attention. I trace that back to second grade, arguably the most traumatic year of school for me to date. In small groups, and especially in pairs, I throw myself into conversation and will instigate debates if I have strong opinions on a topic. I am slowly finding the necessary balance between my setting and my beliefs and values which are much more liberal than the general views around me. Hopefully soon I will adjust to the culture shock of moving from a highly diverse area to a relatively…homogenous and conservative area.
Woah, that IS a handful, and they are all an interconnected web of issues that I think all teachers deal with in one way or another. Regarding your own vulnerability: One thing to remember, I suppose, is that you might be able to be more vulnerable in the your current environment more than your previous high school setting. There, vulnerability could be perceived as weakness and students might take advantage of it.I could see how someone might learn to avoid that to keep a level of control and progress in the classroom. In the current space (CSU), maybe that isn’t the case.
Regarding my own vulnerability: I recently did a lesson with a 9th grade class, the same as I did last year, about Poe’s “A Tell-Tale Heart”. I start the class that day asking students about GUILT and the anxiety of BEING CAUGHT. Before asking students to write about a moment where they felt this way, my collaborating teacher and I share one of our own experiences. This is a very difficult moment for me, and I assume the other teacher to some extent. I shared a time when I had a cheat sheet for an exam in college when I was entirely unprepared (don’t judge), and the professor saw it at the beginning and hovered over me for over 30 minutes, but what felt like hours. She eventually moved in for the kill. The other teacher told the students about a time that she stole a piece of jewelry from a family that she baby sat for when she was younger. The guilt and anxiety drove her to throw it away. She got caught too.
We both became very vulnerable to our students in that moment. But, damn! What a difference in the students’ writing. I did this once before where the teachers didn’t share an example. Students got so much out of it. They dug deeper. The wrote about the feelings in their moment. Their thoughts. The details. And they shared them. Students that never wanted to present their own writing, students with hard shells, and disinterested attitudes, came forward with honest and in-depth reflections of their guilt stories.
So, it served two purposes… at least! Students wrote more, and shared more. The side benefit, if there is one and I’m sure there are more down the road, was that students saw (as the other teacher put it) “that we are not these goody-two-shoes teachers/adults that never made a mistake.” And in that, our classroom community grew and vulnerability became more acceptable, and that acceptability opened up more pathways of learning.
Last week, I walked into my 350 class and the usually effusive teacher I am assigned to, addressed me with a hangdog look and said, “I don’t know if I can do this anymore.” When I tell people I want to be a teacher, I get an array of responses, from, “Don’t do that” to “Wow, you’re brave, that sounds awful, to “So are you saying you are looking for a rich husband?” I seldom receive praise for this choice outside of the academic sphere, and eventually, it wears on me. This is a perfect day for me to do this post. My students in 350 class were off-task today, my classwork load seems insurmountable and my heart is heavy with the stresses of my outside life. I was trying to shift my mood to become more positive this morning in 350, so I went to go take a quick break and make some copies. As I was standing at the copy machine, one of the staff members came up to me and said, “Oh my gosh, I thought you were a student, you look so young.” One of the worse parts of her saying that to me was that honestly, sometimes I feel that young too. The truth is, I remember middle school clearly, I still feel many of the adolescent fears, inklings and desires that I did back then. So here’s my wobbles today, among the plethora of others I am having: When, if ever, will I look, feel, be ready? How do I gain the confidence that goes beyond my years? What amount of vulnerability is constructive, and when does it become detrimental? I love that education allows me to be in a position of constant growth and vulnerability, but I also need to find the balance that keeps me healthy. I know I want this, I have always wanted this, but as of today, I just feel scared.
Wobbling with the future
Like most of the comments made by my classmates, I also have a constant wobble between the future, life, school, and the “right now.” This is supposed to the time for figuring things out and finding myself and enjoying the amazing opportunity to learn. Lately though I’ve been consumed with this instense worry of “What Comes Next?” Whenever I express confusion, doubt, or uncertainty about my future the reply I get is, “You’ll figure it out, you have time.” But will I figure it out? Do I really have time? I’ve been telling myself for 4 years now that I have time to figure out my future and I still feel like I’ve gotten nowhere. I need to start answering questions about my future instead of just asking them. I am a procrastinator, I always have been. But it has come to the time where I need to stop procrastinating and just get things done. My wobble is how to plan for the future but still stay in the present.
(Oh and also this repeated use of “wobble” got that annoying-yet surprisingly catchy-wobble song by V.I.C. stuck in my head)
One thing that I often think about and wobble with – it’s something I have consistently thought about throughout my time in the education department – is the notion and idea of how to best put all of these things into a working model for myself. I have always been very adaptable and I assumed (and still do to a certain degree) that that is what teaching would mostly consist of. Of course there is a lot of foundational work that needs to be done, but that was one of my thoughts. I have more recently found myself filling my free time (if there is any) with ideas about how I can create a classroom that is conducive to all of the students that in my classroom, while having the same expectations from every student. How can we have the same expectations from every student and expect to try and give them individual education experiences? That seems counter intuitive to me, but at the same time it makes sense in some ways.
Another thing I have been thinking about ties in with the vulnerability idea that Garcia has been talking about, but my idea takes the idea of trying to create a space – our classrooms – that is safe for them, where they can feel accepted, but is also challenging to them and never comfortable. The difference between the words safety and comfortable are the key in those thought processes and have caused a lot of wobbling on my part as I try to think about how that could be approached in a classroom of any age and in any socially diverse setting.
My wobble is motivation. It’s always right around this time of year that I start to get burnt out and lazy, and I’m finding it really difficult to do just about anything: I haven’t been working out, I haven’t been reading (either for class or for myself), I haven’t been writing, I haven’t been getting ahead or even really staying current. I’m trying to find a way back into the groove, but it’s hard when your options are to either relax and watch TV, or read countless pages of text that’s dense and difficult.
On the matter of getting students to share in class, a thought occurred to me during the last class meeting. Normally, I have no difficulties speaking up and giving my opinion or supplying an answer to a question. But during a poetry unit when my personal writing is supposed to be shared, I clam up; there is absolutely no way that I’m going to read my miserable attempts at poetry to the class. But what if I didn’t have to read all of it? What if I could just select one line or two lines, just a small little portion that I felt had some potential to it, and only presented that to the class? I wouldn’t have to read the crummy lines or the whole thing, just the little parts that I actually liked.
Additionally, within the poetry unit, I struggled a lot with the practice that was given to the class. While I enjoy poetry, I am not particularly great or fond of writing it. And while the idea of rewriting a piece of poetry might seem easy to some people in comparison to writing a brand new one, I found it just a daunting, if not more so. You see, I don’t want to set my horrible attempts next to a piece of brilliance. But what if you were to give me a number of poems and asked me to splice them together however I wanted? I could take a line here, a stanza there, a word from over there, and interweave them to create something new, without having to worry about putting MY words on the page. Has anyone ever considered that kind of poetry?
Hey there Antero, I liked how you wobbled through our poem, and also enjoyed the Poem that you did, Thank you for sharing! One thing that amazed me is that, yes, I can have questions of my own, and no, I don’t have to have all of the answers.
What I am wobbling with this week is self-doubt..
Let’s put this in another way…
I lost my job from being laid off about 2 months ago, and finally after all of this time I finally found another job, However…. this job pays $3.50 less than my original job, and also gives less hours :(. This means that I will (most likely unsuccessfully) take on another job and also go to school the full time that I am *sigh* think that is about it for the wobble this week professionally.
Personally, I have been wobbling with how to juggle work, school, and a new wife all at the same time while rebuilding a car (yes, actually rebuilding it so that she can use it). All of this is putting stress on the relationship that her and I have and we are starting to fight over the most meaningless stuff…. for example the printer *hits the printer for the 50th time today* which also needs fixing.
All of this to say, I don’t have enough money for food, am starting a new job, rebuilding a car, doing homework, trying to be a “good husband” (whatever that looks like) and find a second job… my wobble is… how do I have time to reflect and get down to the nitty gritty with my homework if my home life is so hectic… to be honest I can’t WAIT until I am a teacher, maybe then I will have a little more free time. 🙂 Thanks Prof. Garcia, and if it makes you feel any better I picked Beowulf, and here is what I wrote…
‘neath the heavy brow of the one they call Mr Daughters,
Came forth frome his hands a device,
Such a blight upon this earth that mortal men
Shriveled and gods wept at its coming
The math test, its unfeeling pages laid bare,
Did search the very core of these who beheld it,
Making children within the classroom shrink
from its fiery gaze.
This math exam, its intentions plain,
did look as if the very hand of death
had manifested itself upon the desk,
as it thundered down from the devil’s own fingers
Never, though, did it meet its match,
from straight A students to AP club members,
it mocked them all, and yet,
here, I sat,
Bared upon my chair with only a pen to defend myself with,
I could not erase the strokes with which
I marked that page, and from whence my sanity came
only the good lord knows,
for I was unprepared as a newborn babe,
completely fresh and outmatched by this exam
the one, which I faced naked,
for I,
No I, did not study.
The test is grendel, and I am supposed to be Beowulf… hope this is good enough for you all… kinda embarrassing for me, but hey, I am going to be a teacher, we don’t get to hold on to things like pride when we set foot in the door! Have fun all!
One of the most abstract things I wobble with right not is trying to decide what to teach students. When I think about this, it takes on a much more nebulous and abstract dimension of trying to understand what exactly I need to teach my students. I feel that on either side of this topic is the balance between using the standards to help determine what needs to be taught as well as finding content that is meaningful and relevant to the class in a particular context. And while I do feel you can find both when you’re teaching a subject, but it still seems fairly ambiguous and large and I feel I mostly need to get into a classroom to see what works and what doesn’t. I’m not entirely sure how to distinguish what a student is struggling with in their education and how to adequately address what they are lacking in the classroom. And I’m not entirely sure how to find my own way in my classroom for teaching different information that doesn’t automatically revert back to teaching the way I was taught in high school or the way my professors teach me how to teach.
The athlete in me LOVES the wobble. I was conditioned to respond in the moment – that moment when you’ve been caught in the run down and it’s up to you to stay alive long enough to let the guy on third score. It’s that concept of reacting in the way that best benefits the group that I love here. I know I’ll get stuck, but when I do, I plan on making that decision to stay alive until we score.
The period of wobble that I’m in right now is a really strange one because of the transitional period that my life is in right now, which mainly stems from moving to school in Prague to school here. I didn’t care about school over there, that’s absolutely no the experience that was important to me or was important to my program either. The number of experiences that i had outside of “classwork” were beautiful and changed my life in so many great ways, but they also allowed me to take school off for a semester, and now at my first semester back at CSU it’s been a little bit difficult for me to set my scope on what’s really important, which right now for me is actually classwork. Even if i hadn’t studied abroad last semester this would still be a wobbly semester for me (I plan on graduating either Spring or Summer). So I’m not only focusing on what I need to do inside the classroom, but also on what I’m going to do when there is no more classroom, which includes scrambling for internship possibilities and creating extracurricular projects that will allow me to find what I really want to do with my life. I’m also in a period where I’ve switched concentrations within my English major (sorry Dr. Garcia), which has taken an extreme amount of attention and thought and which has led me to looking for other opportunities that I’m very excited about, but which wobble me to my core. Lots of new and exciting things have made me wobble back and forth, hoping to find my flow soon.
Alex
What I liked about Anter0’s wobble is that he poses the question who decides what is correct/incorrect. Credibility is something we must obtain, but I know that I could be “placed” by most of you when it comes to teaching poetry or memoir. I think I struggle most when educators steadfast with their borderline narcissistic interpretation of class material. Some professor’s I’ve encountered come across as full of themselves, and will consider a interpretation incorrect if it does not align with their own opinions. This mentality has waded as the new generation begins their careers in the field of education. I think we must recognize that rarely are we an expert on the topic of anything; therefore, we should be open to new and conflicting ideas and opinions.
“I want to wobble a little longer here with you; don’t say goodbye.” The wobbling effect of life is continuous and never gives in. I guess the only way for me to beat it is to get my priorities in line (whatever that means). It helps me to look towards the end goal. Lately though, I have even feeling like I don’t have enough focus to go around which makes every thing turn to shit. I love being bust and wobbling. It is a guilty pleasure. I like to see how far I can go before the bobble head is too much weight for the rest of the body. This is the first time that it has hit the dash board though. Nothing sucks more than realizing your capability. That’s why I am picking myself off and trying again with the same set of priorities in a different order. I think it helps to find something that you do for yourself. School for me is a way to prove to myself that I am smart. his is turning into a journal entry, so I am going to stop here. I just wanted to point out that it is good to wobble, because it lets us discover our strengths and weaknesses if we pay attention.