bethdarby, July 21, 2002 at 12:11:16 AM CEST

Participant Observation 7/19

I'm still thinking of who I might want to "follow" through this project and there are several good candidates. Jeannette spoke today of "shock therapy" for her students, culture shock therapy, that is. And I'm not sure exactly what she meant, but think it involves teaching tolerance, or motivating students, expanding awareness. Tonda spoke of "students as community". It is clear that the "social action" theme is threaded through our class discourse. Vicki still appeals to me because the theme runs through all her pieces. But, I am seriously considering Marlene. When Marlene began talking about critical incidents, she brought up the self-esteem issues of her students, and how sad it is to see those who received A's in former classes in developmental classes because of low scores on profiency exams. I think she has also spoken of some of the dysfunctional and impoverished backgrounds. Then, in yesterday's class, Marlene shared her morning writing, a beautiful excerpt of memoir about her his sister Ruth's first teaching experience in a one room school. I told Marlene that I will bring her a book I have on "life story writing". It wasn't till after class that I saw some possible connection between her writing and her criticial incident. Doesn't writing about our lives address self-esteem issues? Writing about what has happened to us and getting respectful feedback address self-esteem. Looking at your heritage addresses self-esteem. Isolating challenges and problems, seeing how these have been or can be worked through, can reveal respect for oneself and one's abilities, especially when supportive feedback is available. So, I am wondering if life story writing might be something that would benefit her students. She certainly has a knack for it herself, so it is quite possible it is a project she could really become engaged in.
I was too busy netting the butterflies in my stomach, the ones that kept flitting up to remind me my demo was upcoming, to notice a tremendous amount about Friday's class. Also, we only went half day. The supportive social interaction and feedback I received afterwards was very encouraging. Comments helped me think of how I can revise to make the assignment clearer. How to get this kind of feedback from students? Marlene, for example, said she did the assignment "wrong". She didn't, but... she also said she hadn't understood the assignment. I don't know if this was because her response was different than other responses. Her response was just fine. I realize, however, that I can expand my explanation.
There were a couple of participants who wrote for 5 of the 20 minutes reserved for the writing portion of my demo and then stopped. It bothered me. I noticed that during and after the demo this non-participation, rather than the full participation of others, was in the forefront of my mind. Do I expect everyone in my class to participate enthusiastically? (Well, I guess so!) Later, I had to remind myself that these two have both expressed insecurities about their writing. They're also very busy in the evening and could have been tired. Who knows? I tend to look on it as failure unless everyone in my class seems to be having fun. Gotta stop that, huh? But I do see more participation and input from students as a way to even up classroom power a bit. I'm thinking about ways to do this with the multi-genre approach. Nothing else much to report. I did get a new taperecorder in preparation for interviews (I was hoping my old one was under warranty). I need one for my interviews of family members (thesis) and this seemed like a good time.

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