BLOG #12  Jeanne Nixt

 

Reading the beginning of Warnock and Gasiewski’s book titled Writing Together, the concept of the teacher-pupil relationship, as it is written into books on teaching writing, is very one-sided.  Pratt says that these methods are written from the view point of the teacher and teaching, but “not from the point of view of pupils and pupiling” (p.xiii).  This struck me as something that I have thought about when I was teaching Kindergarten and First grades, that the voices of my students, even if they didn’t add much regarding pedagogical practices or materials to cover, still rated some merit and acknowledgement.  I took into account my students when we wrote our classroom rules together, and when I observed their reactions to certain lessons – tailoring the next lessons to the plans which worked, eliminating those that didn’t.

As a student in the TESL program, and a prospective ESL teacher, I have heard a lot about agency in my courses.  Teaching adults requires a different “touch” – students need to be involved in the classroom and see real-world applications between what is learned in class and what is required out of class.  Students must be allowed agency in their work.

Back to W and G and the idea that students voices are not taken into consideration when planning is done.  I keep thinking about assignments that I have done for professors that I can see connecting to the subject of the class.  Other times, the sheer amount of reading and writing removes the connection or the message of what I must read as student, and becomes busy work.  If there is too much reading or writing, and the student feels burdened by it – is that student learning? Or is that student just slogging through to get to the finish line without really getting something from the material?

I think that is a challenge for every educator as they plan their syllabus and as they go through the actions of teaching a class responsively.  There is a balance between too much work which creates the attitude of ‘just get it done’ and the right amount that teaches, stimulates the student’s thought process, but allows room to take in the lesson, too.

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