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Greg’s Comment
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9 thoughts on “Greg’s Comment”
….from now on the only thing that will be on the board on the first day of starting a new story will be one structure. And that will be the only thing on the board until it has been repeated 100 times….
I can think of a few teachers, like myself, who should do this. Those two sentences are big time. Do, however, give yourself an out. Sometimes working with a structure in PQA/PSA whatever can fail because the structure lacks power. So just let it go. Have a back up.
But not writing the back up on the board until you’ve reached failure on the first one is brilliant. I’ve never heard of this idea but it truly resonates. We want reports on how this goes. Very badass.
…to delve deep into one piece of literature and explore the world of its author, time period, events that influenced the author, etc. to the extent that I usually wanted to was not possible….
Only once did I have professor, Dr. Isadore Silver at Washington University in St. Louis, who allowed this. I actually wrote about him here:
https://benslavic.com/blog/2012/09/16/flashback/
I was speaking with a colleague recently, a wise drama teacher who has been at my school longer than I’ve been alive, and we were talking about the popular notion that kids ought to be well-rounded. I agree that it is important to be exposed to various subjects and ideas, but we have noticed that some parents actually discourage their kids from delving too deeply into a subject they are very passionate about. But how many great artists, thinkers, writers, etc. accomplished what they did by skimming the surface of a bunch of strategically prescribed disciplines? College professors are seeing that the only thing that high achieving kids are passionate about (And prepared for) is receiving approval and feeling entitled to a good grade. I suppose that, by letting our freak flags fly, and openly sharing our passion for our subjects (as long as we don’t lecture them in English about grammar or anything else too much), we can show them how satisfying it can be to be someone who has followed his/her bliss, so to speak, rather than pursued conventional notions of success.
On the topic of digressions in English: Maybe Spring is the best time to make these kinds of departures from the TL, when it feels right, when we see that kids simply are unable to do the CI work, when everyone is feeling burnt out and in need of a brain break that includes some honest human interaction about life–as long as we can sense that they are truly curious, because then it is compelling.
…maybe Spring is the best time to make these kinds of departures from the TL….
This ties to your point. We as teachers are of the opinion that we don’t have time to delve deep into non-CI things for the single reason that our time is so limited. We know our kids need many thousands of hours and we only have 500 max in high school, so we naturally stay in CI as much as we can – that is the party line anyway. But your point here:
…when everyone is feeling burnt out and in need of a brain break that includes some honest human interaction about life–as long as we can sense that they are truly curious, because then it is compelling….
What if we actually had thousands of hours of free time to go narrow and deep with our students? Which of us would not run straight to the literature and to the history that for some of us were own first loves in the love affair we began years ago that we chose to turn into careers?
What if by some weird time arrangement, we had the time with our kids that was enough to bring them to the deep well that we know about? I just did two years of intense CI and one reason was so that next year as seniors we’re going to have a Little Prince party.
If we magically had all those extra hours we wouldn’t have to stress about never doing enough CI. We could do the culture piece but not the two dimensional kind. We could dive deep and show our kids our own favorite authors and works and historical periods.
Just rambling here bc I keep waking up with images of what happened yesterday. My daughter goes to Simmons in Boston there and a good violin playing friend from college also lives there. We two used to play Telemann duets in front of the St. Louis Zoo entrance with open violin case in front of us. I love me some Telemann.
God bless and heal our nation. He will, too. We’re a part of that. In my opinion. The more happy students, the less shooters.
Back to the point, esp. with the Latin team we have here, I would be perfectly happy to spend years learning from your wisdom. I wouldn’t even need the language part. Think what the collective offerings of you and Maust and Bob and all the others would be. Think what you have for America!
How I would love to explore with you the ancient part of our Western heritage that I never got to dive into. That we all should dive into, really, bc it is so kickass. So we can understand properly what came after. So we can learn to think properly again as a nation. And you thought you were just teachers! You are healers!
I mean, I got hints and intellectual aromas of Plato and stuff when I made French my companion for life, but only on the rebound. There was a Classical age in French literature in the 17th century. Just think what you Latinists are starting here.
I shouldn’t have looked at the HuffPost coverage of the explosions. Power of images.
John, I totally agree that April and May could perfectly be spent on non-CI stuff. What you say here is worth repeating:
…when everyone is feeling burnt out and in need of a brain break that includes some honest human interaction about life–as long as we can sense that they are truly curious, because then it is compelling….
It doesn’t have to be all CI.
While I agree that racing through a prescribed list does no one good, I can’t deny the need for some structure. I do a unit on the history of Mexico at the beginning of Spanish 1. I thought it was so easy to present this as CI, because the material would be so familiar to kids. What elementary school student doesn’t know that Christopher Columbus sailed the ocean blue in 1492? Well, a lot, it turns out. Some of my private school educated high school students don’t know what a colony is or that Spain is in Europe, or indeed that Spanish originated in Spain.
I believe we need “hooks” in our brains to attach new knowledge. When those hooks are missing, it is very difficult for students to progress. While we should allow leeway for individual teachers to share their passions with their students, it is entirely possible for a student to miss laying down important hooks that will handicap him later. So we need to find a balance between accountability and freedom.
I wrote my Master’s thesis on three short stories a novella, and a novel (all by the same writer). A list which my comittee thought absurdly short. However, I learned more with limited– but deep– focus than I ever would have had I “gone big.” When you REALLY dig into something– like me reading ALL the then-extant criticism on my author– you see things you don’t see when you skim. The guts of things.
I don’t think I could PQA one structure for 70 min as Greg says but I think his idea is bang on: “Little Done Well Trumps Lots Learned Poorly” (There’s your tagline, Ben!)
I agree, Chris. My thesis for the MDiv was “chronological considerations in Ezra 4” – a single chapter from the Old Testament. That took me to Persian history, Israel during the Persian period, learning some Old Persian, and several other places, so there was breadth; but there was also depth. This wasn’t just a survey, because I had to wrestle with the issues of a set of 24 verses. I would not have learned as much from “an overview of chronology during the Persian period”.
It just occurred to me that the same process occurs with the brewing of beer. I learned the most when a) failing (at an English extra special bitter) and then b) trying the same recipe three more times till I nailed it.
Every time I went through the process, I had to REALLY look at all the factors that did/did not contribute to a good brew. Now, I not only have the ESB dialed, but I also know exactly how to get temperature X or gravity Y, plus sanitation etc etc. End result: when I get into new territory, I have the “subroutines” dialed and things are much easier, and I know why things don’t work.
Teaching BTWbis INFINITELY more complex than brewing 😉
“One more thing (almost done here): One thing I would imagine a lot of “teachers” objecting to with all this is that if there is no concrete assignment, some kids won’t “get” the material.”
Greg, if their heart is not in the right place and they fail to engage in the process, they will not get anything out of a CI class class – except Laurie has a touching story about a young man named Jason and he did acquire some language. Hum??? Traditional final exams were always epic fails except for a few bright kids who always ruined the curve. My niece had 6 years of French in a good HS – Dick D – read Abington in PA. She was challenged to identify half of the words on one of my word lists for French 1. She managed to remember facts for a test and poof, it was gone. In my experience, one of the many problems with traditional teaching – my colleagues call it “hard core grammar” – was that I needed to come up with a curve for the final exam that would satisfy everyone – admin included but we are not supposed to curve. Shhhhhhhh! I am math challenged. Three dimensional math is beyond me- it wasn’t pretty – not to mention it was not honest! Today, all my colleagues are complaining about the kids. I just keep quiet, since mine are fine. How about singing today? If my French colleagues know the song “Cerf Voalnt ” from “Les Choristes” it’s a perfect song for spring – we are doing movie talk! Lovin life!