Sunday, May 8, 2011

Will we teach our kids to LEARN?

I once taught a John Updike short story to an AP class one day. I forget the title, but it was about a priest who is working in a migrant community in the southwest and has the role of a Christ-like figure. In the end the priest is rounded up and killed as a martyr protecting the farmer...yada yada yada...The assignment was to write a character analysis of either the priest or the farmer and support it with quotes from the story that lead the student to that view.

I had never read the story prior to that day. I was a substitute (didn't even have my certification as I was junior year at Eastern Michigan) and the class had 10 senior AP English students. We read the story, actually I read the story in a VERY animated manner. As we began to discuss the book, the students looked a bit lost. It was just a farmer and a priest, a stupid priest at that since he had gotten himself killed..not very exciting characters they said.
I then asked what kind of person was the farmer. The class started talking about how he worked, cared for his community....the usual. We then talked about other "famous" personalities that had similar traits...Then we discussed the priest....we quickly filled the 12 foot long board with 100's of observations related to character and setting...as the students started writing their papers conversation filled the room. Most were amazed that such a short story, 6-8 pages, had so much in it. Most wrote papers that were 4-6 pages long--almost as long as the story they said unbelievably. As they were writing, a teacher from down the hall stopped in to see how were were getting along. She looked at the kids, all busy writing, looked at the board with all the prompts, and looked at me and asked--

"Of course you discussed the literary aspects and components of the story as well, right?"

Though I was at the school a few other times that year, I was never asked to sub in another academic class and was given either SpEd classes or CTE type classes.
I did see some of the students from the AP class and they all said they had done very well on their paper, but it was an omission on my part leaving out the literary terms.
I followed the lesson plan--READ, ANALYZE, WRITE/RESPOND, but somewhere in there a discussion of concepts was "assumed," after all it is an AP class...

Throughout my career, I have taken the creative road towards teaching. When a unit was completed, the students could tell you anything about the material--take a test and they failed miserably. Because, as I was told, it wasn't taught in a testable format...(ROFLMAO)
So I guess the point of this rant is that teaching isn't just about certification, hands on experience, or knowledge of a curriculum, teaching is about being able to instill a passion for learning--not necessarily knowledge. Knowledge is the result of learning. If we cannot, do not or will not learn, we have no chance to gain knowledge.

As David Allen Coe sang in his song The Ride--Can you make people feel what you feel inside...
Why are we expected to know how something works before we learn about it? We have forgotten how to teach others how to learn and forced them straight to knowledge.
Isn't that like forcing someone to eat liver everyday, telling them it is good for them and refusing to allow the person to learn what is "good" and discover possible alternatives that have the same out come?

Do we explain to a child how walking works before we try to get them to walk? Would they understand the laws of physics and balance? We just encourage them to walk and later they learn "why" it works.

I believe education has many things assbackwards. We have allowed ourselves to be consumed by the test, and lost sight of individuals and the importance of learning.
Like the proverb about giving a person a fish or teaching them to fish---

we are GIVING our kids knowledge without teaching them how to learn LEARN..

No comments :

Post a Comment