Hey all, hope your day is going well. Hang in there - things are a little crazy right now, what with individual life concerns and upcoming finals, but I absolutely believe in you. You can do it!
I am assembling a personal teaching credo chock full of ideas and theories that our English 587 course has presented all semester.
A few of my policies will include:
+ Refusing to publicly shame students for poor work or behavior
+ Providing encouraging and constructive commentary
+ Viewing students as budding intellectuals, not just "kids"
These will branch from personal experiences and will be supported by the works of such writers as Peter Elbow and Mike Rose, as well as the collective minds from Cross-Talk in Composition. My credo may turn out to be a touch idealistic (I admit that I have dreams of the "perfect" classroom that may not work well in application). However "rainbow-and-butterfly-esque" it may be, I find the opportunity to really mull over what sort of classroom I would run to be incredibly helpful. There have been a multitude of opinions on how to teach thrown at me since I was as upper-division undergrad, so taking this chance to tromp through the veritable swamp of theories in order to fish out what I find could be applicable is invaluable - now I can worry about application rather than just soaking up and retaining new ideas!
Well, that is what I will be writing about. Thank you for reading, and best of luck to you!
You said that one of your goals is "refusing to publicly shame students for poor work or behavior." Is this as in, shaming students in the class for not doing well? I'm trying to think of a time in college that I've had a professor shame a student in front of the classroom. The closest thing I can think of is when teachers say how many students got Ds and Fs.
ReplyDeleteWhat is one of your experiences with this, if you don't mind me asking?