September 1, 2009
Sometimes they raise their hands. Sometimes.
My class is quiet.
I don’t know, I mean, I suppose that’s to be expected. It’s an 8 AM class. Nobody is awake. I’m only awake because I wake up like 2 hours before so I can warm up to it, and I still have to down some caffeine beforehand. So It’s not like I can really blame them.
But man, I dunno.
As a teacher, I want to bring to the classroom what was effective for me. And frankly, until I realized that reading the assignments let me talk in class, and talking in class was where the education and the entertainment in education was… until I realized that, I hated literature classes, and I hated a lot of how they went on. Then, suddenly, when I could contribute, the classes became mine. Well, not just mine, but ours, It belonged to everyone in the class. It was a group journey. That’s just infinitely more entertaining.
I want to bring that to my class, to get them started on the right foot, because if they get used to that early, maybe they won’t fuck up like I did, you know?
But I am unsure what it is. Maybe they don’t think they can contribute anything. Maybe they’re coming right off of high school where they never had to say anything in class. But sometimes, it just really isn’t happening, and I can’t get anyone to say anything. Even in their responses, where they are supposed to be free to write whatever, and I keep writing comments constantly saying “TELL ME YOUR IDEAS” they just keep summarizing over and over. Bleh.
I mean, it’s early in the semester. Maybe I’ll get them to understand later. It’s silly to think everyone is going to start out perfect. It’s silly to think that my dream classroom is just going to come together before me, especially in a freshman-level core requirement English course.
But I can hope, eh?