As I was reading the articles this week I was confused at first why I was reading the article "A lesson from the Holocaust," because it seemed to be all about a military school classroom and I did not see how this was relevant to me. As I read on I realized that this article related to me because of the lessons that she used in class could also be used in a regular high school or middle school classroom. This teacher talks a lot about apathy. This is when a student does not participate in class and they follow instructions but do not show passion or curiosity. I always thought this was holding back a student from actually learning. Although by the teacher realizes that you can use apathy as a strategy in the classroom. I really liked the lesson she did by having the students look up a website that has to do with threats to the Americans' freedom of speech. I thought the one student had a point when he asked why there were doing this because they had no freedom of speech in the school because they listen to the people higher than them. Although, I do understand why this is a lesson that should be taught in any classroom because it is really important to show how important the 1st amendment is.
The second article that was about the teacher who was in NYC on 9/11 and how she became a teacher after that day. I liked her strategies when she taught World Literature. I liked that each quarter she would do another destination and would talk about stubjects like she was a history teacher. I do not like history but I still thought what she did was a really good idea. I thought showing the Chinese video to her class was a good strategy too. It was amazing that students got so touched by the story even though they had to read subtitles the whole time. I also like that she did a reflection after that made the students use the story and relate to their own lives. I also like how she used the pictures as well and then made the students use the pictures to do more writing for reflection purposes. I think I am just a fan of the visuals and then reflecting on them using writing and personal thoughts. I also like when she did other destinations she used some modern day examples along with the other things she was teaching to give the students something to recognize completely. I think that is important with a lot of strategies because not all students understand and using a modern day example would probably help. I love the different presentations that her students did at the end of the year because of everything they learned. They all seemed to do something they enjoyed and there were so many different activities for the students to do to connect to the lessons they learned in class. I hope when I am a teacher, I can use stories and the possibly some world connections to get that great of a reaction of the end of the year from my students!
I also was confused at first about the article and felt that I would not be able to relate it to myself but I was certainly wrong about that! When the article talked about apathy, it really made me think, how am I going to help motivate those students who do the work but have no passion behind it? I think that this will be a challenge for me in my own classroom so I hope I can build up some good tips to deal with that.
ReplyDeleteI loved many of the ideas used by the teacher in the article about the 9/11 experience and teaching. She seemed to use great activities to motivate and engage students and really helped them to learn effectively. I also really liked that she used reflection with her students because I think that this is an important skill for students to have in life and teaches them that they can learn a lot from themselves. Also, I think the visuals were a great aid to lead into a writing assignment because it can help students think about what they want to write about if they don’t fully understand a concept that was just explained. Modern day examples are definitely good learning tools I believe because it gives students something to relate the concepts too and helps better aid them in understanding. I know that when I go through classes that don’t involve connections or modern day examples, it really is a struggle and doesn’t seem to connect for me. I really hope that I am able to incorporate all of these types of strategies into my future classroom!
I felt the same way about the first article so I agree with you and Nicole. As teachers I hope that we can teach our students to not be tolerant and instead be curious and questions.
ReplyDeleteVisuals are a great way to get students interested in an idea. Sometimes I feel "history" is not important to students because they cannot visualize the idea and this is why they cannot connect. Connections from the past to real life events is a great way to show students why it is important to them.
I love seeing how teachers combine disciplines in the classroom. I usually describe literature as a reflection and a response; thus, for that to be true, English is tied up in history and philosophy and math and food and emotions and politics and everything! This is something that I am trying to strengthen in myself - connecting different disciplines in my English classroom (which I have heard also peaks student interest?).
ReplyDeleteAs you stated, both teachers offer some really great strategy ideas for gaining student interest and including the world in the classroom.
I agree with you when you discussed how apathy turned out to be a great teaching strategy. I always thought that word have a negative connotation to go along with it. As the article said, the teacher turned the idea of apathy around and turned it into an actual strategy. I also really like the idea of visuals in the classroom because it helps the student visualize events of the past. Like you, I'm not a fan of history but these visuals help make learning easier.
ReplyDeleteWhen you mentioned the Chinese video, it makes me think of the videos we used to watch in my high school, and it also makes me think of one of the conversations had in my LC this past week's class. Sarah was talking about watching Schindler's List in eighth grade, and how the class just watched it and moved right along afterward! That's how it always was in my classes - we just would watch the movie and hardly ever give reactions to it. It would be more like filling out a question sheet to make sure we were paying attention. But that seems like such a contrast compared to what reactinos a visual aid can really provoke, as you said. I am a visual learner, so I am sure I will use videos in my classroom. The important part is to make it relevant and connect it to the rest of the lesson/unit.
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