Theory and Praxis (PG)
A brief word of explanation: This next batch of stories is mostly slice-of-life stuff, and a couple of them--like this one--span multiple years between Principalities and Powers and the summer of 2005. We're still trying to post in chronological order, though, so the multi-year ones are going up in order of start date.
Also, a short A/N about this story: I've tried to keep the discussion of ed/lit theory clear enough, but if you get confuzzed about something, ask and I'll explain in the comments.
Summary: Dean hates education theory. Sam's not sure he agrees.
Theory and Praxis
by San Antonio Rose and Enola Jones
August 12, 1997
“This is garbage,” Dean growled.
Sammy looked up from his book. “What is?”
“All this education theory junk. Higher-order thinking skills, multiple intelligences, Bloom’s taxonomy-it’s just a bunch of long words that don’t say anything. I can’t believe I’ve got to sit through a whole week of this.”
“Why do you have to sit through a whole week of it?”
“Faculty development workshops.” Dean switched to Sign as he continued, Seriously, stupidest thing EVER. Total waste of time. If this what college like, count me out.
Sammy let him rant for another minute before suggesting that he take a break and get something from the vending machine in the teachers’ lounge. When he came back, the little twerp was busily reading... the book Dean had run out of patience to read.
Dean plonked the soda and M&Ms down in front of Sammy. “What’d I tell ya? It’s stupid.”
“I’ll let you know when I finish,” Sammy replied distractedly and opened the soda without looking away from the book.
Dean huffed, turned on the radio, and got to work on planning lessons for ASL 3.
By the time Dean was ready to quit for the evening, several hours later, Sammy had just about reached the end of the education theory book. He read the last few pages while Dean packed up, then handed the book to Dean with a thoughtful hum.
Well?
“I don’t think the author’s 100% right,” Sammy replied, picking up his own book and the remains of the snack he’d eaten almost without realizing it. “But she does make some good points. Not that it applies that well to teaching ASL as a second language, and I do get why you don’t like it. But no, I don’t think it’s the stupidest thing ever.”
Dean just stared at him.
“Actually... I thought it was interesting.” Sammy blinked. “I wonder if I oughta consider teaching.”
Explain book to me first. We see how well you teach.
So over supper, Sammy explained in ASL... and Dean understood both the book and his brother’s budding desire to pursue teaching as a career.
What you think you teach? Dean asked in all seriousness.
Sammy shrugged. History, maybe. Science and languages fun, but history hard to teach right. Need more teachers like Cooper.
Dean nodded thoughtfully, then grinned deviously. You take his class first. Then see.
Sammy laughed. Challenge accepted.
March 23, 2003
Dean. Had had. Enough. He slammed shut the book he was reading and hurled it toward the door of his classroom-only to have it caught by a very startled Mr. Cooper.
Dean grimaced. “Sorry, Mr. C! Didn’t see you there.”
“Obviously!” Cooper looked down at the book in his hands and saw that it was on deaf education theory. “Was it something they said?”
“I hate this class. It’s a complete waste of time. I’m teaching ASL as a second language to people who can hear, not as a first language to deaf students. Why the hell should I care how deaf kids gain knowledge without the sense of sound?! Saussure was wrong, anyway-any hunter knows language ain’t arbitrary.”
“Well, why are you in the class in the first place?”
“It’s required.”
Cooper brought the book back to him. “Are you sure Deaf Ed is the right program? Seems like there ought to be something more useful in Modern Foreign Languages, or even a Teaching English as a Second Language class.”
Dean sighed. “Maybe so. I’ll talk to my advisor about it next week. I just-all this theory stuff is so boring.”
“Don’t you have theory for your engineering classes?”
“Yeah, but there it actually makes sense. I get the real-world applications-hell, even the quantum mechanical stuff has a few applications for hunting. Education theory... it’s just a bunch of philosophical psychobabble. Who the hell cares?!”
Sam walked in at that moment and huffed. “Just because you don’t think it’s practical, Dean....”
Dean rolled his eyes. “Thank you, Stanley Fish.” They’d been having this argument all semester, with regard to both pedagogy and the Literary Theory class they were both taking at Daphne’s insistence, and it had settled into taking pot shots at each others’ favorite theorists (Dean’s, surprisingly, was C. S. Lewis, so Sam had resorted to calling him Owen Barfield instead).
Cooper shook his head and chuckled. “C’mon, muttonheads, sounds like you both need a break. I’ll buy you supper. And for the record, Fish isn’t teaching literary theory at the moment.”
Sam’s eyebrows shot up. “Really? What is he teaching?”
“Freshman composition. Only it’s more of a class in rhetoric by way of linguistic mechanics, the way he teaches it. The end-of-semester project is for each student to invent a language.”
Both brothers blinked and chorused, “Seriously?!”
“Yep. Oh, and Dean, remind me to tell you the one about the hoax article that got published because Fish thought it was too good to need peer review, the one subtitled ‘The Transformative Hermeneutics of Quantum Gravity.’”
Dean laughed all the way to La Paloma and cheerfully ignored the long, involved conversation Cooper struck up with Sam about theories Dean had dismissed years ago. Then, when the brothers got home, he Googled “Stanley Fish hoax,” read up on the controversy, and laughed until he cried.
October 16, 2004
Dean walked into the kitchen to see Sam about ready to pull his hair out. Literally-he had his fists clenched in his hair on either side of his head.
“Dude,” said Dean, concerned. “What’s with you?”
The hands left Sam’s hair and moved as Sam looked up at him. You make look so easy.
What- Dean started to ask, and then he realized. Sam had begun his student teaching with Mr. Cooper that semester, and Cooper was throwing him into the deep end next week and making him plan his own lesson for one class with nothing but the textbook to go by.
What to say? What to leave out?
You have 55 minutes. Hit highlights. When Sam’s eyes skittered down to his notes, Dean added aloud, “Hell, at least he ain’t makin’ you teach all of Irish history in one hour.”
Sam’s groan was music to his ears.
“Dude, seriously, you’re overthinking this.”
Sam looked up at him. Sounds familiar.
Dean chuckled. Look, forget theory. How you learn best?
Stories.
So tell story. Show movie. Hell, do song and dance.
Sam laughed and the tension eased.
Dean continued aloud, “The taxonomy, the hierarchies, all that junk-that’ll work its way in eventually. But for right now, you got one hour to plan for. Tell your story in that time the best way you know how, and make sure you leave time for questions.”
Sam looked at his notes and then smiled.
Dean smiled back. You can do this, Sammy.
Thanks, Dean.
Dean gave him a side hug, then paused. “Told you all that theory stuff was worthless, Fish.”
“Bite me, Barfield.”
Dean cackled and got on with fixing supper.
Also, a short A/N about this story: I've tried to keep the discussion of ed/lit theory clear enough, but if you get confuzzed about something, ask and I'll explain in the comments.
Summary: Dean hates education theory. Sam's not sure he agrees.
Theory and Praxis
by San Antonio Rose and Enola Jones
August 12, 1997
“This is garbage,” Dean growled.
Sammy looked up from his book. “What is?”
“All this education theory junk. Higher-order thinking skills, multiple intelligences, Bloom’s taxonomy-it’s just a bunch of long words that don’t say anything. I can’t believe I’ve got to sit through a whole week of this.”
“Why do you have to sit through a whole week of it?”
“Faculty development workshops.” Dean switched to Sign as he continued, Seriously, stupidest thing EVER. Total waste of time. If this what college like, count me out.
Sammy let him rant for another minute before suggesting that he take a break and get something from the vending machine in the teachers’ lounge. When he came back, the little twerp was busily reading... the book Dean had run out of patience to read.
Dean plonked the soda and M&Ms down in front of Sammy. “What’d I tell ya? It’s stupid.”
“I’ll let you know when I finish,” Sammy replied distractedly and opened the soda without looking away from the book.
Dean huffed, turned on the radio, and got to work on planning lessons for ASL 3.
By the time Dean was ready to quit for the evening, several hours later, Sammy had just about reached the end of the education theory book. He read the last few pages while Dean packed up, then handed the book to Dean with a thoughtful hum.
Well?
“I don’t think the author’s 100% right,” Sammy replied, picking up his own book and the remains of the snack he’d eaten almost without realizing it. “But she does make some good points. Not that it applies that well to teaching ASL as a second language, and I do get why you don’t like it. But no, I don’t think it’s the stupidest thing ever.”
Dean just stared at him.
“Actually... I thought it was interesting.” Sammy blinked. “I wonder if I oughta consider teaching.”
Explain book to me first. We see how well you teach.
So over supper, Sammy explained in ASL... and Dean understood both the book and his brother’s budding desire to pursue teaching as a career.
What you think you teach? Dean asked in all seriousness.
Sammy shrugged. History, maybe. Science and languages fun, but history hard to teach right. Need more teachers like Cooper.
Dean nodded thoughtfully, then grinned deviously. You take his class first. Then see.
Sammy laughed. Challenge accepted.
March 23, 2003
Dean. Had had. Enough. He slammed shut the book he was reading and hurled it toward the door of his classroom-only to have it caught by a very startled Mr. Cooper.
Dean grimaced. “Sorry, Mr. C! Didn’t see you there.”
“Obviously!” Cooper looked down at the book in his hands and saw that it was on deaf education theory. “Was it something they said?”
“I hate this class. It’s a complete waste of time. I’m teaching ASL as a second language to people who can hear, not as a first language to deaf students. Why the hell should I care how deaf kids gain knowledge without the sense of sound?! Saussure was wrong, anyway-any hunter knows language ain’t arbitrary.”
“Well, why are you in the class in the first place?”
“It’s required.”
Cooper brought the book back to him. “Are you sure Deaf Ed is the right program? Seems like there ought to be something more useful in Modern Foreign Languages, or even a Teaching English as a Second Language class.”
Dean sighed. “Maybe so. I’ll talk to my advisor about it next week. I just-all this theory stuff is so boring.”
“Don’t you have theory for your engineering classes?”
“Yeah, but there it actually makes sense. I get the real-world applications-hell, even the quantum mechanical stuff has a few applications for hunting. Education theory... it’s just a bunch of philosophical psychobabble. Who the hell cares?!”
Sam walked in at that moment and huffed. “Just because you don’t think it’s practical, Dean....”
Dean rolled his eyes. “Thank you, Stanley Fish.” They’d been having this argument all semester, with regard to both pedagogy and the Literary Theory class they were both taking at Daphne’s insistence, and it had settled into taking pot shots at each others’ favorite theorists (Dean’s, surprisingly, was C. S. Lewis, so Sam had resorted to calling him Owen Barfield instead).
Cooper shook his head and chuckled. “C’mon, muttonheads, sounds like you both need a break. I’ll buy you supper. And for the record, Fish isn’t teaching literary theory at the moment.”
Sam’s eyebrows shot up. “Really? What is he teaching?”
“Freshman composition. Only it’s more of a class in rhetoric by way of linguistic mechanics, the way he teaches it. The end-of-semester project is for each student to invent a language.”
Both brothers blinked and chorused, “Seriously?!”
“Yep. Oh, and Dean, remind me to tell you the one about the hoax article that got published because Fish thought it was too good to need peer review, the one subtitled ‘The Transformative Hermeneutics of Quantum Gravity.’”
Dean laughed all the way to La Paloma and cheerfully ignored the long, involved conversation Cooper struck up with Sam about theories Dean had dismissed years ago. Then, when the brothers got home, he Googled “Stanley Fish hoax,” read up on the controversy, and laughed until he cried.
October 16, 2004
Dean walked into the kitchen to see Sam about ready to pull his hair out. Literally-he had his fists clenched in his hair on either side of his head.
“Dude,” said Dean, concerned. “What’s with you?”
The hands left Sam’s hair and moved as Sam looked up at him. You make look so easy.
What- Dean started to ask, and then he realized. Sam had begun his student teaching with Mr. Cooper that semester, and Cooper was throwing him into the deep end next week and making him plan his own lesson for one class with nothing but the textbook to go by.
What to say? What to leave out?
You have 55 minutes. Hit highlights. When Sam’s eyes skittered down to his notes, Dean added aloud, “Hell, at least he ain’t makin’ you teach all of Irish history in one hour.”
Sam’s groan was music to his ears.
“Dude, seriously, you’re overthinking this.”
Sam looked up at him. Sounds familiar.
Dean chuckled. Look, forget theory. How you learn best?
Stories.
So tell story. Show movie. Hell, do song and dance.
Sam laughed and the tension eased.
Dean continued aloud, “The taxonomy, the hierarchies, all that junk-that’ll work its way in eventually. But for right now, you got one hour to plan for. Tell your story in that time the best way you know how, and make sure you leave time for questions.”
Sam looked at his notes and then smiled.
Dean smiled back. You can do this, Sammy.
Thanks, Dean.
Dean gave him a side hug, then paused. “Told you all that theory stuff was worthless, Fish.”
“Bite me, Barfield.”
Dean cackled and got on with fixing supper.