March 18th Blog Quiz

Task A:

As I read chapters 3 and 7 from the handouts, I couldn't help but see myself. I desire to be a non-traditional teacher and yet I too find myself privileging print, and I can see how this might cause me to let go unnoticed the abilities my students will have in multi- and digital literacies. For me this is so easy to do because of my age and the fact school for me has always been traditional. I guess sometimes we think "don't mess with success", and yet I can truly see how this mode of education is not necessarily one mired in success.

I did an observation class last year and during the time I was there, I can recount many, many occasions when students asked if they could "play" on the computer. In fact, "playing on the computer" was one of the rewards the teacher offered for those who had finished all of their "regular" school work. No one acknowledged a student's abilities in this media form might, in fact, be a successful literacy all on its own.

The thing in the chapters which caused me the most self-examination was when it talked about academic versus vocational track curricula and how some students are "routed on a path leading to blue-collar trade jobs" versus those who are being prepared for college. How sad we need to make a choice when it comes to our students. We don't take the time to assess their knowledge and their skills in other areas of literacy, and we simply assume they do not have the necessary skills to become part of the information age.

I saw myself in the statement that "in fact, engaging in new literacies makes adolescents all the more dangerous ... because their knowledge and skills threaten adults who lack them, leading to the current panice for the good old days of print literacies". When I look at this statement, I see the importance of classes like our 307 class - bringing us from the past into the present and the future.

We need to know who our students are, and we need to know the kinds of things that interest them and the kinds of things they read if we are to help them become information brokers in our new world.


Task B:

I loved the articles on the middle schools. I guess probably if I were to choose where I would like most to begin my teaching career, middle school would be my choice. I laughed and I even cried when I read these articles. I have raised four children of my own so I can sympathasize when they talk about how every one middle school student is like teaching three high school students. So I can only imagine what a class of 15/20 middle school students (or the equivalent of 45/60 high school students) must be like.

My very favorite was the "overweight" math teacher who turned the comment about her being a "fat lady" into a teachable moment. I'm going to remember this one for my own classroom should the need ever arise.

The part I was most concerned over was when it talked about how we prepare teachers for teaching elementary school and high school and not middle school. This was especially of concern when I looked at how woefully behind in reading skills these students are when they enter the high school arena. It says that NY state offers a middle school certification, and I was wondering if Cortland offers a major leading to this certification, or if we simply contain it in the 7/12 adolescent education curriculum. I can certainly see (especially when it comes to 6th graders) how we are in need of a "different" kind of teaching for these middle schoolers if we are to keep them from becoming the later high school dropouts.

How very say "reading scores plunged from fifth to sixth grade, when most students move to middle school, and continued to slide through eighth grade". This happens at the same time we have a "breathtaking range of student ability" within our middle schools. Why are teachers not tapping into this ability?

These articles just make me more anxious to finish my education and start my own teaching career before some more of these students talents and abilities are ignored and they become statistics.