Flunking out of teacher's college
I don't think I am cut out to be an education student. There are times when I really do enjoy the act of teaching, learning, hunkering down with students, getting to know them, etc. But before I get to any of that good stuff there is the impossible task of planning units and lessons. Is there a real teacher out there somewhere who actually does this shit?
I'm all for having a plan. But, as you well know, I cannot be caged. And all of these god-forsaken unit and lesson plans have to be typed up, categorized, and fit into horrible little boxes on my computer screen. And as cliché as it sounds, I really do not think inside the box.
We have learned (in the very few classes that they give us at the university before they fling us into the unknown) that different students learn different ways and that, as teachers, we should not only respect but embrace the diversity of learning styles in our classroom. We learn to make room for the introspective types by letting them write a journal instead of an essay. We learn to make room for the musical types by letting them rap the passage of an apple through the digestive system instead of taking a test. We learn to let the dramatic types act out the archetypes of Jungian psychology instead of filling in a worksheet. We learn to stop privileging text exclusively and start embracing art, movement, music and nature.
And then they make us write. In little boxes. And put ourselves and our big ideas in little boxes.
But I, as you well know, cannot be caged.
~g. mango don't want no education
I'm all for having a plan. But, as you well know, I cannot be caged. And all of these god-forsaken unit and lesson plans have to be typed up, categorized, and fit into horrible little boxes on my computer screen. And as cliché as it sounds, I really do not think inside the box.
We have learned (in the very few classes that they give us at the university before they fling us into the unknown) that different students learn different ways and that, as teachers, we should not only respect but embrace the diversity of learning styles in our classroom. We learn to make room for the introspective types by letting them write a journal instead of an essay. We learn to make room for the musical types by letting them rap the passage of an apple through the digestive system instead of taking a test. We learn to let the dramatic types act out the archetypes of Jungian psychology instead of filling in a worksheet. We learn to stop privileging text exclusively and start embracing art, movement, music and nature.
And then they make us write. In little boxes. And put ourselves and our big ideas in little boxes.
But I, as you well know, cannot be caged.
~g. mango don't want no education
POSTED BY G. MANGO at 22:10
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