Wednesday, September 24, 2008

Chalk and Wire and Class Discussion

I feel like in the longrun chalk and wire will be very useful as a teacher searching for a job. It is basically helping us to prepare our professional portfolio and resume. Right now it just seems kind of tedious and almost impossible as to how we are going to cover all the competencies for each level of portfolio in our 3 years left. I hope it all falls into place a little bit more as things move along in our classes. In the future, I will be very grateful to have been required to do this portfolio all through school so I don't have to do it on my own when I am looking for a teaching position.

The class discussion we had today (Wed. 9/24) I feel was very interesting. I always wonder why we teach children what we do and why people feel that they need to learn certain subjects. In some ways it is what is expected of us. In high school, a lot of people expect students to get all the way up to Calculus if they can. But for me, taking the difficult classes that I probably wouldn't need ever in my life were just a way to challenge my brain and keep me thinking in new ways. Yeah, it's nice to not have 3 hours of homework every night if you take easy classes or the minimum requirements but I get bored taking those classes and feel that I'm not working to my full potential. When I know I could be doing more it makes me feel lazy. It's a hard semester when you take these classes but it opens your mind to a new world and who knows, maybe you find something you really like to learn about or you will discover that even though you are good at something and capable of doing it, it just isn't your cup of tea. I want to be taught things that I didn't know before and that will challenge how I think and make me work hard. I think that is the point of taking the more difficult classes that you will never use again in your life.

1 comment:

Associate Professor of Education, Luther College said...

Dana,

I am wondering if the "challenge" is too often developmentally inappropriate leaving students wondering what all of their effort was about. For instance, my example of multiplying fractions was intended to show that most of us don't have a very deep understanding of the process although we can do the algorithm effectively and efficiently. Can we be challenging and engaging at a student's developmental stage without go too abstract too quickly? Thanks for you comments.