A(nother) place to write

To grow as a teacher you should reflect on your teaching and learning.

I went to an in-service offered by our district today. I didn’t eat breakfast because I expected some donuts or something but all I received was coffee. There were two parts. The middle/high schoolteachers went to break out sessions in the morning and then a large group session in the afternoon. The theme was cultural literacy. So the first break out session I went to was given by my son’s Social Studies teacher and the topic was Romania. She travels to Romania each year to test vision and give out eyewear to the people there. She talked about the gypsies and the sewer kids and it was fascinating, but only about 5 teachers were in attendance. I found out too that the SS teacher is the niece of one of the members of our church who just had their 50th wedding anniversary. (Strains of “It’s a Small World”)

I then went to the second session a couple of rooms down on Afghanistan and Bosnia. The man who taught it was a teacher at the new middle school. He is also a Colonel for the Army National Guard. The stories he told were “more than you can imagine”. I know because he kept saying that (over and over). The room was packed to the gills, with folks sitting on the floor and on the windowsills (including at least 6 other people from my school, who didn’t even know I was there). I was the first one there and spoke to the presenter before everyone arrived. I said that I was interested in the culture of Afghanistan. He said he was going to talk about the war, and I said that was interesting too. He used a power point presentation to show slides (as did the other teacher), and he started with scenes from 911 and “The Star Spangled Banner”. This kind of got my goat immediately, but since I was farther from the door than you could get, and since it was packed, well…. I stood out of respect (and was the only one who did who wasn’t already standing). He told us how great it was that we (the U.S.) were there and about all of the Humanitarian things we have done for that country and how awful the previous regime was. He gave very graphic examples of the horrors and the triumphs. I was crying at the end, and of course so was he. It was pretty intense.

After that presentation I gathered up my crocheting and headed back to the lobby to look at the books for sale. I didn’t buy any. I then called my kids and asked if they wanted some Taco Bell and purchased some and took it home. I went to the bathroom and headed out again and went to IUS for the afternoon session. I found my daughter’s teacher and asked if she had practice tonight. He said no, which meant I was right and daughter was wrong. The session was the same old stuff with new names, but I enjoyed the presenter and the quotes and examples that he used. One thing that I got from it was that our students are a refection of ourselves (or vice-versa). He said this a lot when the teachers were “acting out”. When listening to the teachers around me talk though I thought the best example of this was the fact that so many were not getting what he was trying to teach. Yet this is the very thing they criticize their students for! We were handed a concept map and this foreign language teacher next to me said it was of no use to her and I gave her 4 examples of how she could use it right there. She was amazed. (I just told her I specialized in curriculum development—which is true.)

The other revealing thing for me was what he said about culture. He told a story about how he and another African-American friend were at the movies watching an Eddie Murphy film with an audience full of whites. There was laughter all through the movie, but there was this one place where no one laughed except the two of them. They thought this passage was hilarious, while the rest of the audience was wondering what was so funny. He also said that many of the parts that the audience found funny he and his friend did not. Later, when he was presenting his conclusions, I laughed in at least 3 spots where no one else did and didn’t think several things were as funny as others did. (In those cases I’d heard the jokes too many times before for them to be funny.)

I still am not clear on the concept of “Discourse Patterns”, so I guess I’ll have to look it up and try to identify which concept they are changing the name of and reteaching to us. The presenter, Dr. Cleveland had some assistance from Mr. Meadows, a teacher from the Indy area. The entire presentation was good, but you can tell they condensed about 4 days in-service into one afternoon. Two books they recommended were “The World is Flat” and “If You Don’t Feed the Teachers, They Will Eat the Students”. Both sounded interesting. Oh, and one of the jokes I laughed at that no one else did was “if you want to be successful, serve donuts”.

And I started on a poem… Inspired in class, I’m not sure where I’ll go with it.

ADHD student
I’m brilliant but I’m stupid.
I can think outside the box but I’m stuck in a rut.
I’ve lost all of my homework, but I’ve done ten pages of extra-credit.
I never finish what you asked me to do, but I’ll always volunteer to help out.
I can’t pay attention to you for five minutes, but that video game fascinates me for hours.
4:51pm