To research?
I'm in my Action Research seminar right now and we're supposed to be writing about the problem we've selected for our action research project. Only, I'm a little fuzzy about what my topic entails. I can mentally picture my classroom, can project my students into their assigned seats, and feel what I want from them. I want confidence and meaningful chatter. I want to see enjoyment-- glee --on their faces as they spin tales about what a poem or a short story or a character's speech in this play or what the author was intending with this book. I want them to understand that their opinions are valid and they have enough knowledge and life experience in their fifteen/sixteen years to decide them for themselves.
The problem, however, is that this is not the type of English classroom most of my students are used to. This is perhaps making a huge assumption and/or generalization, but most of their prior experience with English is regurgitation or rote memorization. It's hard for classes to steer away from this, I know; standardized testing makes it difficult to teachers to "waste" time on concepts that aren't going to be "most beneficial" to their students, aka jeopardize their scores on the tests that will see they graduate. But in the last three months with my students, I can see it on their faces sometimes. That glee. And I want that for them all the time.
Most days I think that English class is a mirror of how we interpret the world; if my students have been developed by the public school system to not even trust their own voices, then how can we expect them to see the world for all its possibilities? Doesn't it feel like heartbreak when children, because that is what they are essentially, call a novel "stupid" or "boring" just because it's difficult to understand? Doesn't that feel like we've done those students a disservice, when they don't trust their own opinions?
The problem, however, is that this is not the type of English classroom most of my students are used to. This is perhaps making a huge assumption and/or generalization, but most of their prior experience with English is regurgitation or rote memorization. It's hard for classes to steer away from this, I know; standardized testing makes it difficult to teachers to "waste" time on concepts that aren't going to be "most beneficial" to their students, aka jeopardize their scores on the tests that will see they graduate. But in the last three months with my students, I can see it on their faces sometimes. That glee. And I want that for them all the time.
Most days I think that English class is a mirror of how we interpret the world; if my students have been developed by the public school system to not even trust their own voices, then how can we expect them to see the world for all its possibilities? Doesn't it feel like heartbreak when children, because that is what they are essentially, call a novel "stupid" or "boring" just because it's difficult to understand? Doesn't that feel like we've done those students a disservice, when they don't trust their own opinions?