It's that time of year...

As many of you may already know, practicum ended on the 19th. It was an emotional day for me. I cried (despite telling myself that I would never do such a thing in front of the students). My cooperating teacher cried. We had parties in each class, complete with baked goods and notes for me written by my students. There was even a group hug. Tomorrow is the first Monday in about eight weeks where I will not drive to City High. While I appreciate the extra time for homework, I feel like something is missing; it is as if I'm walking around without some important article of clothing. Yes, sleeping-in on Tuesdays and Fridays will be nice, but I know during that time I will constantly ask myself how the kids will respond to their stereotype unit, or if Student A will finally "play nice" with Student B. While this probably sounds trite, I tell myself that my attachment to the kids and the classroom is a good thing. It's indicative of how much I care about my students, which ultimately is important within any successful classroom.

In an article I read for class, the author described teaching as a "lonely profession." I think this is true to an extent, and my cooperating teacher and I discussed this many times throughout the semester. There is only one adult in room interacting with thirty-something adolescents. During the day, the exchange between colleagues is minimal and usually reduced to a few minutes of passing time. While prep periods and after school provide time to meet, this time is often dedicated to planning and working. Because of this, it is easy to feel lonely or uncertain of teaching decisions when there is not another adult in the room. However, I think the trade-offs for this loneliness are the unique connections teachers form with their students. I know I already miss the connections I formed with my students in eight-weeks, and it's hard to imagine that feeling multiplied. In this sense, I think teaching unmatched by any other profession.

Again, these ideas are nothing new to the teaching world. However, it's nice to have this blog as a medium to communicate them, especially as I go through this experience for the first time. :)

Mackenzie

Kurt Vonnegut and Other Thoughts

As may be obvious from some of my previous posts, I love Kurt Vonnegut. This love affair began in high school when I first picked up Slaughterhouse-Five. My obsession (obsession, yes, but I think it's at least a healthy one) continues every year as I make it a point to read one of his novels every summer. When Vonnegut died my senior year of high school, I felt as if I lost an old friend as Vonnegut's words helped shape my adolescence. To console ourselves on his death, my friend Travis and I went to Barnes and Nobel. Walking through the stacks, we found Vonnegut's last published work, A Man Without a Country. I don't think we talked much as we both read the short work silently and quickly. Finding this short collection of Vonnegut's thoughts was akin to finding a treasure trove. I bought the book and reread it several times. One passage reminds me a lot of this class and of teaching in general. He terms it one of his many lessons on creative writing, some of which he developed while teaching at the Writer's Workshop in Iowa City.

"Here is a lesson in creative writing.

First rule: Do not use semicolons. They are transvestite hermaphrodites representing absolutely nothing. All they do is show you've been to college.

And I realize some of you may be having trouble deciding whether I am kidding or not. So from now on I will tell you when I'm kidding.

For instance, join the National Guard or the Marines and teach democracy. I'm kidding.

We are about to be attacked by Al Qaeda. Wave flags if you have them. That always seems to scare them away. I'm kidding.

If you want to really hurt your parents, and you don't have the never to be gay, the least you can do is go into the arts. I'm not kidding. The arts are not a way to make a living. They are a very human way of making life more bearable. Practicing an art, no matter how well or badly, is a way to make your soul grow, for heaven's sake. Sing in the shower. Dance to the radio. Tell stories. Write a poem to a friend, even a lousy poem. Do it as well as you possibly can. You will get an enormous reward. You will have created something."

Vonnegut continues on to say that every great writer has broken every one of his rules. While his lessons in creative writing could certainly be beneficial to students, I think the more salient point here is that art, no matter what form, is a way to appreciate life in a completely unique and personal way. Vonnegut also believed in the value of every individual's voice, regardless of the background, race, or orientation this voice carries. While teaching my students to love art, music, literature, etc. may sometimes be impossible (and believe me, I can understand this just from working within my practicum experience), I hope I can at least teach some of my students the value of their own perspectives and the power those perspectives carry to create. I know this sounds very cliche, but the moments that this appreciation manifests in the classroom are priceless.

Mackenzie

Personal One-Pager to Buddy

Below is my one-pager to my sophomore buddy at West. I had fun writing it. Enjoy!

I board the plane with my eyes wide and hand fastened securely in my mother’s. Foreign knobs and buttons surround me while a stewardess with bright red lips and perfectly sculpted blonde hair bends down to pin a pair of wings on my favorite pink jacket. I smile shyly at her and let my mother lead me to my seat. Everything in this plane is new and exciting and my large six year old eyes strain to memorize each of these experiences. Just a few feet from the door, my mom stops and leads my little sister to the massive leather chair that she will claim as her own during this trip. Just three years old, Callie crawls up unto her seat and immediately begins to suck her thumb. Lacking a source of comfort such as this, I turn to watch everybody else in our cabin. Business men and women line the rows around us, dressed in the best Wall-Street attire. I know immediately that my family and I are out of place with our blue-jeans and comfortable sweatshirts. We are not the “first-class” type.

After my mother situates Callie, she takes me to my seat. Because my father cannot leave his work for this trip, I must sit alone on this plane ride to California. My uncle, the ever-doting California business owner, decided to pay for our trip to visit him and his wife. While I had flown before, I had not known the luxuries of first-class and how snide the people riding it can be. However, undeterred, I let my mother take me to my seat for this last leg of the trip.

As we approached my seat, it becomes clear that an older-gentleman, about fifty, would be my partner for this trip. He has steel grey hair and wears a dark navy suit that probably cost hundreds of dollars. When we approach, he peers down condescendingly from his glasses as to say “How dare you bother me?”

“Hi, sir,” my mother begins, used to this interaction from our previous flights. “This is my daughter, Mackenzie. She’ll be sitting right next to you for this trip. I will be in the seat in front of her in case she needs anything.”

I smile at the man, expectantly thinking that he would immediately be charmed by my six year old presence. Instead, he peers down at me and then my mother with those same steel frame glasses that now seemed to reflect his dark grey eyes. He slowly clears his throat.

“Does she have to sit here?”

My mother, not immune to this kind of behavior, looks at him and answers, “Of course she does.” She then instructs me to sit and hands me my books, my crayons, and my beloved Etch-a-Sketch. The man again clears his throat and in an attempt to pretend I don’t exist, opens a notebook and starts to work.

Although I sense that this man wants nothing to do me and that I am have no place in his plane ride or “first-class” world, I decide to give him another chance. Slowly, but surely, I begin to talk to this man, letting him in on my six year old thoughts, stories, and imagination. I share with him my favorite books and show him my brilliantly-creative Etch-a-Sketch drawings. Eventually, his steely-grey exterior cracks and he begins to ask me questions about school and tell me stories of his own. I can tell that I amused, or at least intrigued, him through my verbose demeanor. When we aren’t talking, I secretly feel pride that I made this “mean” man my friend.

Little did I realize on that plane sixteen years ago, but this moment would become indicative of the person I am today. While I no longer charm business-men through my Etch-a-Sketch drawings, I do believe that every person, regardless of class, background, or orientation, deserves kindness and respect. Although I was not acting out of this deep conviction as a six year old, kindness and respect is something I have intuitively understood from a young age. One of my favorite novelists Kurt Vonnegut would confirm this belief for me several years later after I read an excerpt from his novel God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater. As the protagonist of the story prepares for a baptism of two babies, he prepares this speech: “Hello, babies. Welcome to Earth. It’s hot in the summer and cold in the winter. It’s round and wet and crowded. At the outside, babies, you’ve got about a hundred years here. There’s only one rule that I know of, babies—you’ve got to be kind.”

While Vonnegut communicates this idea more simply and eloquently than I ever will, I live by the belief that every person deserves this basic treatment. In short, everybody has a story to tell, and I want to listen. As I approach my teaching career and get ready to interact with people from all walks of life, I will live by this belief that began to show its signs in my six-year old behaviors. While the benefits of such kindness may not manifest itself in obvious ways, most people respond positively to such behavior.

Back to the plane. Several hours into the ride, dinner arrives. Stewardesses place chicken with some sort of vegetables in front of us. After helping my sister with her portion, my mother turns back to assist me. To her surprise, she sees the steely-old business man with a small smile on his face, listening to my latest adventure. He helped me unfold my napkin and while I regale him with my words and quirky personality, he slowly cuts my chicken into manageable portions.

Grammar

Teaching grammar is the only part of teaching English that makes me a bit squeamish. In sixth grade, my language arts teacher embarked on a journey known as the "Sentence Writing Strategy." The actual activity was just as horrible as the name implies. Instead of creatively playing with language or reading, we each completely a series of worksheets at our own pace dealing with how to properly construct sentences. I remember mindlessly identifying the subject, verb, and object on countless worksheets. In short, it was torture.

As the readings from this week imply, such direct grammar instruction really benefited me little. While it probably made me cognizant of the parts of a sentence, I don't think I improved as a reader and writer much during that year because the instruction was not delivered in a meaningful, literary rich context.

This semester, I'm taking a class called Teaching Second Language Learners, composed of both English and foreign language education majors. We discussed the teaching of grammar fairly extensively and all of us seemed to agree that we feel some sense of obligation to teach grammar, especially if there are English language learners in the classroom. However, the suggestion from that class seems to align itself well with the readings from this week. Instead of teaching grammar in isolation, teachers should expose students to grammar in a literary rich environment that helps build metacognitive awareness about language. Furthermore, while students (and especially ELLs) need to know the "rules," giving students opportunities to play with the structures of language and build on intuitive knowledge seems key to a meaningful and productive interaction with grammar.

While I still feel a bit nervous trying to design creative and interactive activities that focus on grammar, and while I know that grammar will never be the sole focus of my future classroom, the readings from this week and from my other class ease my mind a bit. However, as long as I deviate from any activity that remotely resembles the "Sentence Writing Strategy," I think I will do well as an English educator.