John Piazza shares this as he starts his academic year today:
I am thinking out loud in order to psych myself up for my first day of instruction, which is tomorrow, so please bear with me. Ben has said, echoing Krashen, that if we consciously approach a class with any sort of linguistic ulterior motive or scope and sequence “master plan,” the students will sniff out our lack of authenticity, and acquisition will stop. We need to give ourselves the space during class to take a genuine interest in the details of our kids lives. We need to dive into the class story and discussion and CWB not with a view to our master plan, but with nothing more than a curiosity about our students here and now, what they will share of themselves, real or imagined.
Everyone in education is talking about the big picture, about testing, about projects, about big data, about grand visions, but nobody is talking about what students want to discuss and learn about on a daily basis: themselves and each other. And whatever the learning goal is, students need to be able to view it through the lens of their immediate circumstances. So let’s polish that lens, that is, respect what they bring to class, and maybe they will respect us enough to care about what we care about–because we care about them more than we care about the subjunctive. Maybe they will think that coming to class and paying attention in our class are worthwhile things to do during their school day.
And when kids disrespect the class environment, let’s do them the service of letting them know that that is not okay, and show the entire class that civility deserves to be a top priority in our interactions with others. Let’s be willing go to the mat for respect and compassion and listening, every time a kid tries to test those limits.
All acquisition flows from this.
Have a great week, everybody.
John