Report from the Field – Corinne Bourne

4 thoughts on “Report from the Field – Corinne Bourne”

1. Steven

   August 16, 2018 at 1:06 am

   I had my level 2 French draw out their summer memories, fiction or otherwise. We had an awesome one with a student who was recovering from surgery. She drew herself with a sparkler in hand. It was the fourth of July and she could only see the lights from her hospitable window. So she drew an alternative reality. At the end I said that next year she will have one in her hand.

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2. Ben Slavic

   August 16, 2018 at 8:45 am

   A lot of teachers would have been fearful of “going there”, as you went fearlessly (as you always have) into the sparkler discussion.
   Why? It is because of a lack of trust and confidence that the kids have the vocabulary, even if it is severely limited, to communicate in, at the very least, a basic form to a sufficient extent that the child is involved. That is the big rap against non targeted work, and Greg’s response to my question earlier this week was refreshing.
   Let’s review it:
   I asked Greg:
   …Greg, what do you think about the idea that I have heard expressed with venom at me (by some of my now estranged colleagues in the Denver Public Schools), that some people simply cannot do non-targeted bc it is so random and right brain? Do you see any truth to that?…
   Greg responded:
   …I don’t think that’s true. The OWI is a very specific process as is the Invisibles prompt the students create and the 7-step story process. Also each process creates a reading and there are 21 reading options- seems pretty systematic to me! It’s just organized according to a process and not according to targets….
   So what Greg (and you) are saying is that when there is an existing PROCESS for the “random” communication. But it’s not random at all; it’s the nature and fabric of human communication, which is determined by factors that are so subtle that we can’t even measure them and therefore say they don’t exist.
   The Invisibles PROCESS that I created in India, that, with the more advanced and intuitive sparkler discussion and hundreds of pleasant communication experiences with you students that have not happened yet, this PROCESS provides shiny golden rails for the NTCI train to go down, and not the iron ones of TPRS.
   But my prayer is that everyone reading in our PLC community here knows that they are really being called to eventually create their own process.
   This is something you have done Steven. The Invisibles process provides the training wheels and can and should be used much of time, because it’s so easy compared to TPRS (I can say that bc I’ve written five books about TPRS and still it never worked for me), but my goal here in this work we are doing now is simply to provide the (golden) rails for each teacher to develop their own version of how to communicate with their kids, so that their classroom belongs to no one but themselves and reflects nothing but their own teaching personality to such a degree that they have an entire career of stress-free enjoyment of communication w the kids, with the fantastic results that we have come to expect as normal.
   I believe that you have done this, Steven. You have applied all the discussions here for ( at least 5 or 6?) years and now you can accurately be called a Master of Communication with your students. A master of the standard. My hat is off to you, sir.

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3. Sean M Lawler

   August 17, 2018 at 12:14 pm

   I like this idea… having students draw a favorite summer memory!

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4. Steven

   August 17, 2018 at 4:43 pm

   Thanks Ben. It means a lot but I do not considered myself a Master. It makes me think of “When the student is ready the master arrives.” So I am always learning. We are constantly trying to reach out even if I am not used to. I used to think that I was an introvert and I exhibit some of these traits but I remember back to when I was a kid. I always made others laugh. We get a bit of that with this kind of work– with your kind of work. It’s healing. Maybe cause of the imagination, maybe because we can be open and vulnerable as we connect with students. I am not sure. All I know is that today, My French II class, could have been considered a flop if judged by adults who want super strict TPRS/CI or it could have been a FunFest if judged by the kids. We all couldn’t stop laughing during a Matava script. The blurts were just complete engagement and twists on the story and the INPUT was STICKY. There was no need to check for understanding… all things were in place. Anyway, thank you for recognizing my efforts.

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