bethdarby, July 30, 2002 at 5:12:59 AM CEST

Reflection 7/29/02

 In our response group today, we talked about (surprise, surprise) “social action” and how our portfolios are shaping up in relationship to the concept.  I have some resistance to the term or, I should say, my initial response to the superficial definition that the concept conjures is somewhat resistant.  And I experience some trepidation regarding the changes I am planning in my classroom.  To help me uncover the roots of this anxiety, Karen asked, “Are you afraid you’ll fall in love with teaching?”  An interesting question and I’ve been thinking of why anyone would be afraid of that?  Well… because it would certainly put me out there “at risk” (or risking) in the world.  It is a demanding job, that requires the whole self  (and that the self be whole).  Doug asked if I am afraid of losing myself.  Also interesting… especially in relation to the multi-genre project which equalizes the power in the classroom (by given students choices about genres and formats).  If students have more control, will I have less?  I was just reading comments on my double entry note.  There were notes about students as guinea pigs, about the classroom experiment, and Amy talked about calming down after 3 experiments with multi-genre because she is beginning to trust that her students know what to do.  Writing process/ teaching process.  Maybe I just want to have my final polished teaching draft before I go through the process.  Maybe I need to practice a little Intellectual Patience. It is the control issue that scares me.  So why don’t I just go ahead and vent about it?  I need to practice daily affirmations, look in the mirror and say: You are not in control and “that’s OK.”  I’m not in control…. As soon as I say it, the idea that I could think myself in control becomes ridiculous.  But sometimes my emotional responses to situations seem to operate on that ridiculous premise.
 I’ve been anticipating and responding to possible student reactions to the multi-genre project.   And, I’m just thinking, this anticipation is social action if social action is “do unto others” and this means putting ourselves in others’ places.   I’m thinking of my history as a student, my learning styles.  I’m an old student and odd, maybe, in that a good lecture is a fine way for me to think and learn.  As a matter of fact, I often prefer this method to small interactive group activities.  It stands to reason though, that if I’d rather sit back and listen as a student…. I sure don’t want to stand up in front of everyone and lecture as a teacher.  But I also remember my resistance to certain classroom assignments.  I had an American Lit. class several years ago and one of the assignments was to draw a story we had read, scene by scene.  Now I like to draw…. But I remember thinking this assignment was a colossal waste of my time (it took forever) when I could have been doing some serious homework in any of my other class.  Well now I realize my instructor was trying to appeal to different learning modes and can appreciate her efforts.  But, I’m thinking of my initial resistance and wonder if my students will feel this way about any of the classroom activities which will be designed to relate creativity to their subject, or just explore techniques?  So, I want to tell them up front that every activity might not work for them, but that I want them to try it just to see if it does.  If it doesn’t they can trash it (I’m thinking of activities like the ones in my demo, or discussed in my bibliography).  Well… this seems like a simple approach… giving them permission to dislike activities.  But it boils down to laying down the illusion of control,  the idea that all students could love all activities and prove how truly fascinating and inspirational I am.  So, I guess teaching is a losing of self in a way, or a losing/lessening of self –conscious control.

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mccomas, July 30, 2002 at 4:30:04 AM CEST

Field Notes: July 29, 2002

Spent some time over the weekend reading over Beth's notes and Doug's notes. I didn't really push anything, just did a light read, fingering a few ideas as I processed the words and wondering about where we might be going next. I've noticed, so far, two things. Beth talks a lot about community issues. Doug's early resistance to the social action notion ("I don't do social action" - or something to that effect) is gone. I believe he's discovered that he does a lot of social action, just never called it that. The thought just hit that I thought it might be fair and safe to say that anyone who asks questions about their teaching is a social action worker...an agent for change in their classroom. Doug certainly fits that bill...he asks questions about his teaching.

We began writing about the SA principles this morning. Apparently, Amy and I were the only ones who struggled with this activity. I couldn't seem to rope my thoughts in from roaming all around a pretty big prairie. Just when I would start to narrow in on something, I'd see an idea just out of the corner of my eye trying to escape and I"d have to veer off to the right or to the left to corner that idea. In the meantime, as you might expect, the first idea escapes while I'm trying to rope in the second idea. What I liked about these writings however, was that everyone had something quite different to say.

The other cool thing that happened today was during response groups. Beth, Doug and I met and I shared with them my "Kelly's Story" and attempt at pulling that article together. I'll need to do some work on that tomorrow night before my group meets again. After we met and had some individual writing time (but mostly I worked on the computer getting a few things ready for today) I began to think about my class and the multigenre research project they are doing. It hit me that this kind of classwork is social action. It works toward justice, fairness, and equity. Students have choices and when there are choices there is freedom. Now, I tell Doug about this realization as we're leaving the lab and gives me a pitying look. He thinks I'm working real hard to make things fit, and he feels sorry for me that I'm having to do this. Later in the day however, a turn of events makes me not so pathetic. As we are doing our dialectal writing on our double entry journals, I get one where Amy writes something about whether or not multigenre work is really a form of social action. Of course I pounce on that as confirmation of my earlier idea. I wonder what my students would say about this...do they see this kind of project/work as ultimately fair, just, and equitable?

p.s. I'm insanely jealous of Beth's ability to write beautifully for extended periods of time. I grab 5 minutes here; 5 minutes there and produce short bursts of potential genius that never goes anywhere. Sad.

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