Category Archives: Teaching

Classes and Courses, Learning, Substitute Teaching, Teaching

Here’s WHat I think!

Leave a comment

Well, some of it, anyway. It seemed appropriate to verbalize my teaching philosophy since I’ve been teaching for so many years!

“I write entirely to find out what I’m thinking, what I’m looking at, what I see and what it means. What I want and what I fear.”

Joan Didion

It also occurred to me that some of my students might be interested in seeing something concrete. So after much thinking, consulting with a few respected colleagues in academia (Thanks Jack Falvey and Tony Russo!), I seem to have found out some of the important things I think and believe about teaching and learning. Here’s how it starts:

“When I challenged myself to describe my teaching philosophy, I remembered announcing that I was quitting teaching a few years ago. I knew I was on the right track when an adult student who’d just finished an advanced college degree announced at the beginning of our first class, “I’m tired of learning.” I honestly believed she was tired of being taught. I had to believe that. Learning is fun. Maybe if I quit teaching, she’d learn that.

Tony will, I hope, notice that I avoided dysentery of the keyboard. The entire thing is less than 500 words.!

Bullying, Classes and Courses, Learning, Mental Health, Mental Hygiene, Personal Growth, Small People, Substitute Teaching, Teaching

Was the Big Bad Wolf Bad?

Leave a comment

Sometimes I do suspect the planets align or karma does, in fact, exist. A recent conversation with an old high school chum ended with her announcing she was going to take her dog for an evening walk He is a bit territorial and was anxious to see if Mr. Fox was trespassing. She thought it might not end well.

This triggered a memory that was quickly followed by a seemingly unrelated quote posted on social media.

The memory was of a fun day substitute teaching “language arts” in a sixth-grade class. The assignment was to group read a book together and discuss it. Unfortunately, I don’t remember the title of the book. I’ve since found several versions based on the three little pigs, but this one was written about the wolf in Little Red Riding Hood. It forced us to re-consider the tale from the wolf’s point of view. He narrated the story from his perspective with a plea for understanding.

We had a very intense and engaged discussion after finishing the book. The kids explored the wolf’s perspective with many admitting there were some things they hadn’t considered before. There were some friendly arguments, a few “hadn’t thought about that,” and 100% participation. (The objective of the activity was to encourage creative thinking and explore alternative viewpoints.)

After discussion, I decided to take a class vote. The question was, “How many of you now feel somewhat sorry for the wolf?” I don’t remember how many kids there were… probably around twenty. But I do remember the results of the vote.

One brave boy raised his hand indicating he thought differently about the wolf after reading the story and discussing it. The rest looked at him with what can best be described as incredulity and disbelief. Before concluding the activity was a failure, let me quickly add that no one attacked him or called him stupid. They understood he simply had a different viewpoint or perspective. They didn’t try to bully him into changing his mind. Another successful lesson.

But why did only one person change his perspective? I think the answer to that lies in this quote.

“The reason so many people misunderstand so many issues is not that these issues are so complex, but that people do not want a factual or analytical explanation that leaves them emotionally unsatisfied. They want villains to hate and heroes to cheer—and they don’t want explanations that fail to give them that.”

Thomas Soweit

Most of those kids simply did not want to give up the villain they had known since that story was read to them when they were little–he IS the big BAD wolf–that’s my story and I’m sticking to it! And I guess that’s okay because at least they had figured out that their classmate who thought differently wasn’t stupid. Some actually admitted they could see things differently but they just couldn’t change their opinion.

If the kids can get it, why do we adults have so much trouble?

Learning, Mental Health, Personal Growth, Substitute Teaching, Teaching

Don’t just sit there! Write!

Leave a comment

If you write something, that makes you a writer, right? One day while substitute teaching “language arts,” a sixth-grader objected to the activity by claiming, “I am not a writer.” I walked to her desk and instructed her to open her writing journal to a blank page. “Now write the sentence ‘I am not a writer.'” After she followed my instruction I said, “So now you are a writer because you just wrote something.”

She gave me that “you’ve got to be kidding” look that pre-teens develop to perfection. My next prompt was “Now write another sentence telling me why you’re not a writer.” It took a few return visits to her desk to get her pencil moving in part because she wanted to prove me wrong. Plus it would have been more fun to stare off into space thoughtfully. But that wouldn’t be writing. After a couple of visits and sentences, her pencil seemed to develop a mind of its own. As I recall, she wrote an impassioned piece about how much she hated writing.I still wonder if she saw the irony.

A recent blog post by Seth Godin suggests “There is no such thing as writer’s block.” That set me to thinking big time, particularly since I love the opportunity to get kids writing. They learn all to quickly to claim they have “writer’s block.” I’m not too sympathetic.

Merriam Webster defines writer’s block as a “psychological inhibition.” For those of us who love language and words, there’s an opportunity here. “You don’t have writer’s block! You have a psychological inhibition!”

You have to love how serious that sounds.

But the good news is you can be your own therapist. If that weren’t the case, I’d open a posh retreat center with in-depth programs and support programs for “writers who are suffering from psychological inhibitions.” Attending would be very expensive.

Do enough bad writing and some good writing is bound to show up.

Seth Godin

Isn’t that comforting? We can enjoy our writer’s block by making it a serious psychological inhibition. It won’t take much “googling” to discover a long list of reasons and explanations for those dreaded issues.

Or we can write. Yes, it might be bad writing at first, but you can’t improve on a blank page. Well, that’s not 100% true. You improve on a blank page by getting words on it.

No thinking – that comes later. You must write your first draft with your heart. You rewrite with your head. The first key to writing is… to write, not to think!

Finding Forrester

That is one of the most freeing bits of advice I’ve ever seen about writing. No, writing isn’t always easy. But it can be simple.

Write. Just write.

Causes and Friends, Learning, Personal Growth, Small People, Teaching

More of Life’s Lessons

1 Comment

Well, Anina is at it again. In her most recent email, she introduced her “Uncle Walter” and my recent post about her. She thinks it’s pretty cool that she’s been quoted but quickly adds, “I’m just a bit flattered. Mom said there is a Bible verse that says, ‘The meek shall inherit the earth.’ So I’m trying to be meek.”

We ought to consider following her example and work on trying to be meek. Our society would benefit immensely from a better balance between meekness and self-confidence. I think Anina is already learning that those two qualities are not mutually exclusive. That’s pretty good for someone who just turned four months old.

How are you doing with it?

I have some more good news about Anina. Her Mom is posting her emails as episodes on Kindle Vella. This is a fairly new platform that I won’t pretend to be intimately familiar with. (Does that qualify as being meek?) You can read Anina’s first four episodes (emails) for free, then you buy very affordable tokens to “unlock” the others. I suspect Anina might explain, “A girl’s gotta eat, you know.”

Episode One is “1st Days on Planet Earth,” And starts when she’s ten days old. She explains that she decided to keep a journal so she’d remember what it was like being an infant. When she arrives home (day 3), she realizes she’s been there before because she remembers hearing things but is seeing things for the first time. That results in another bit of Anina Wisdom.

The world is a slightly different place when you see it from the outside.

Anina Mary

We do learn a lot from her, including the derivation and correct pronunciation of her name. I also learned that we share several important opinions of the world.

So… remember that you can subscribe to receive Anina’s emails and catch up on the ones you’ve missed on Kindle Vella. Tell her Uncle Walter sent you. Anina recently learned that an educator is someone who “talks to us about things we don’t know anything about.” I wonder how long it will be before she realizes she is an educator.