Students have started their blogs; some have designed them and others are already entering text. I've observed a number of things in this process. The first one is personal. I cannot find the time to keep up with my thinking on theory and the connections or with the activities. There is a lot to be said about the dialogue that happens between the students and when they call me in to consult. I can almost feel the knowledge growing and taking shape in the air between them as as they call out to me. I always end up in a conversation when I visit a group and we've all changed a little when I leave. I think of theory that discusses the way learning happens in dialogue and the fact that we are constantly changing with each and every interaction.
There is also something to be said about mutual respect when students understand that the facilitator is just that - someone whose experiences can help guide them to the bridges and over them. They don't see me as perfect and that elevates them to humanity and not just a thing in the class for a grade. They are empowered by the combination of knowing they don't know while knowing that they are able to find the knowledge, to build it, to add their knowledge to a larger entity and make it make sense.
I must not forget to add that a few students have shared with me questions about domestic violence and they have mentioned that this is a direct result of the project about women. This makes me think even more deeply about the need for education that is women centered - not excluding men but women centered. Women are still struggling to understand the consequences of patriarchal hegemony and young women are caught in the web before they can find the road to critical thinking. I believe that a women centered classroom will also give men a chance for freedom too.
Breath, Eyes, Memory
Raising consciousness
Friday, March 25, 2011
Tuesday, March 15, 2011
3/15/11
Today 3/15 it is about the importance of dialogue. As I concentrate on the activity in English 103 I keep looking at the tiny details - where I stand, how the students move, and what they say. Today, I arrived and pulled up the bbc to talk about Japan and the earthquake. I asked them if they knew and I noticed that a lot more people are looking at news. So, I thought back and wondered about the difference between requiring them to look at the news on one hand and bringing the news to the classroom as a part of our conversation/interaction. Today, I asked if they knew and they did and then I asked why knowing was important to us - how are we connected - they brought up the economy and we shared our bits - I always tell them I'm not a scholar of the topic, but since I love to learn I read... Someone said that they read about the infrastructure - the buildings and we were able to compare it with Haiti. We connected the economy to the fact that they make things we buy and the dependence between - we talked about nuclear plants and they recalled Hiroshima and I brought up the bbc and photos of family - I asked if they knew who had nuclear plants and how many and they guessed the States because of power and then we looked up and saw the numbers per country - (this gives them a real understanding of who has power).... I pushed them through questions to make connections across borders and we talked about the ring of fire. This led into a sharing of bits of information about how islands are formed - Pangaea and ice age and constantly changing earth and our inhabiting of the planet. But it brought them to us and us to them to see the ring in color on screen.
DIALOGUE and Freire - We moved into the Why Women? project and I realized I'm always on the edge of a little worry. Have I given them too much? Are they getting the connections? And then I stop and look and for the most part (there is always the student (or two) who is sitting back and letting the others do the work while they chat - often the chat is about the project but they are not really working) students are in constant negotiation about the progress the words and the symbols; I realize that the more they call me to the group to ask a question, get advice, or get my okay... means that the learning is going on, that they are engaged, and that they are thinking. Today each call brought out a story from memory or in process that is an example of why women.
SEVEN INTELLIGENCES AND VYGOTSKY My observations of us in the class brings home to me something so obvious and at the same time so distant. This is because of training and the taken for granted notion of teacher as expert - as if somehow outside of the experience. It is now clear to me that the seven intelligences are the seven senses and that this concept is one that includes the teacher and all of his/her senses.
DIALOGUE and Freire - We moved into the Why Women? project and I realized I'm always on the edge of a little worry. Have I given them too much? Are they getting the connections? And then I stop and look and for the most part (there is always the student (or two) who is sitting back and letting the others do the work while they chat - often the chat is about the project but they are not really working) students are in constant negotiation about the progress the words and the symbols; I realize that the more they call me to the group to ask a question, get advice, or get my okay... means that the learning is going on, that they are engaged, and that they are thinking. Today each call brought out a story from memory or in process that is an example of why women.
SEVEN INTELLIGENCES AND VYGOTSKY My observations of us in the class brings home to me something so obvious and at the same time so distant. This is because of training and the taken for granted notion of teacher as expert - as if somehow outside of the experience. It is now clear to me that the seven intelligences are the seven senses and that this concept is one that includes the teacher and all of his/her senses.
3/11/2011
3/11/2011
Thinking through our activities in the classroom I've noticed/noted a number of things.
The importance of my identity, where I place myself in the classaroom, the voice and language I use; how all of this elements affect students are becoming more clear. My experiences as a woman and as a black person in both negative and postive ways contribute to my teaching on a daily basis. It continues to make me more and more sensitive to my students' identities and positions in the classroom. Any word or activity that gives privilege to one student or takes the power from another is hightened by my experience. Included in this analysis is my position of power in the environment; I have to step back constantly and see how my "education" as a woman in a patriachical society that spawns domination through masculine notions as well as the false notions of race inferiority and superiority influences my teaching. This is crucial when I use any approach and any material.
3/11/11
I've had an idea.
The new idea is to give the groups of three big paper for Who, what, when, where, and why. Since we're focusing on the voiceless I'm going to do the first big sheet example on the board - Starting with Breath, Eyes, Memory - and we're going to generate as many words as possible for the why. Then each group will get one related to something we've done in the classroom - female mutilation in Senegal, aborigine women in Australia (Rabbit Proof Fence), Chief Seattle's speech My People in the US, Native American boarding schools in the US... When I give them the paper, I'll give them with two bright crayons and I'll use those minute times and when they get to why as a group they're going to have to generate as many words as possible for the time. Am I making too much fun of the seriousness of oppression? I hope not; I think they'll remember a lot more this way.
Challenges in the classroom
Getting students to understand the idea of community and not competition.
Dealing with various cultural views of learning and success.
Getting students to contribute equally in the group projects.
Sharing voice
women taking ownership of their voices
men learning how to share the power of voice
Thinking through our activities in the classroom I've noticed/noted a number of things.
The importance of my identity, where I place myself in the classaroom, the voice and language I use; how all of this elements affect students are becoming more clear. My experiences as a woman and as a black person in both negative and postive ways contribute to my teaching on a daily basis. It continues to make me more and more sensitive to my students' identities and positions in the classroom. Any word or activity that gives privilege to one student or takes the power from another is hightened by my experience. Included in this analysis is my position of power in the environment; I have to step back constantly and see how my "education" as a woman in a patriachical society that spawns domination through masculine notions as well as the false notions of race inferiority and superiority influences my teaching. This is crucial when I use any approach and any material.
3/11/11
I've had an idea.
The new idea is to give the groups of three big paper for Who, what, when, where, and why. Since we're focusing on the voiceless I'm going to do the first big sheet example on the board - Starting with Breath, Eyes, Memory - and we're going to generate as many words as possible for the why. Then each group will get one related to something we've done in the classroom - female mutilation in Senegal, aborigine women in Australia (Rabbit Proof Fence), Chief Seattle's speech My People in the US, Native American boarding schools in the US... When I give them the paper, I'll give them with two bright crayons and I'll use those minute times and when they get to why as a group they're going to have to generate as many words as possible for the time. Am I making too much fun of the seriousness of oppression? I hope not; I think they'll remember a lot more this way.
Challenges in the classroom
Getting students to understand the idea of community and not competition.
Dealing with various cultural views of learning and success.
Getting students to contribute equally in the group projects.
Sharing voice
women taking ownership of their voices
men learning how to share the power of voice
Wednesday, March 9, 2011
The beginning
Get back to Chasing Dreams here - http://dreamingchange.blogspot.com
Posts: The beginning is continuous and then there are separate posts for the days I'm in the classroom.
The novel is Breath, Eyes, Memory by Danticat and it's the Spring semester of 2011. I've used the book before but it always feels completely new. I'm always asking myself about projects and wondering if my plans are student centered. I keep in mind that my position and my identity matters as much as the students. I step inside myself again to find the right thinking. I find ways to keep myself cognizant of my own socialization process - the colonization of Guyanese society by the British which has left me with hegemonic ideas of race and class that must always be interrogated; along with the Americanized canon of knowledge presented to me in the universities. This knowledge was also riddled with dominant messages of race and class. I'm also aware of the patriarchal messages of gender that are normalized in the society and my role in imparting any of that knowledge to students. Will my approach and my attitude reflect my beliefs; will they stand up to my principles? Am I opening spaces for exploration and questioning in order to allow my students the agency required to think differently?
My hypothesis is that if I do this examination as I work with the students my teaching strategies and student responses will highlight for me how the process of critical thinking is working itself out in our classroom community. I hope that it will give me a better understanding and more evidence and support to ideas about change; if a paradigm shift is needed, are these methods helping students to grow as literate individuals while at the same time facilitating their understanding of owning their voices and using this agency?
The project this semester called "Why Women?" came out of our progress and process in English 103 - a class I see as a critical analysis reading class. The semester's discussions started with the presentation of a UCSB youtube where Danticat's declares that she focuses her writing on social issues and that she makes a point of raising the voices of the voiceless.
The "voiceless" became a part of our vocabulary and this word led us into the large group discussions and it became a lens for viewing other written materials. In Breath, Eyes, Memory the narrator and main characters are women; so we focused on women as a voiceless group. Then we crossed borders to see women in different times (or see how they were missing) and in different countries and cultures. This led to a critique of women's lives today.
We then created bridges to other voiceless groups - Chief Seattle, Native American, Aborigines in Australia, women and female mutilation in Senegal, Native American children's forced removal to boarding schools... All of this is an attempt to understand the dynamics of power.
I'll go through things one at a time. My first task is to look at the material.
Breath, Eyes, Memory
Haitian revolution
Chief Seattle
Rabbit Proof Fence
Native American boarding schools
The Shape of Water - female mutilation in Senegal
Patriarchy - definition
virginity testing
Ton Ton Macoutes
FB - articles on current events sent there for members and to bring up to class
Activities
reading journals
research summaries
Why Women? large poster teaching project
on going blog for a week and a half that must teach about something that has been left out/voiceless - that has been made invisible
Who, Where, What, When, and Why process game based on class material and domination
gender activity - where men and women exchange roles and write down how their lives change - what they think is gained and lost with the gender switch
---------------------
3/11/2011
Thinking through our activities in the classroom I've noticed/noted a number of things.
The importance of my identity, where I place myself in the classaroom, the voice and language I use; how all of this elements affect students are becoming more clear. My experiences as a woman and as a black person in both negative and postive ways contribute to my teaching on a daily basis. It continues to make me more and more sensitive to my students' identities and positions in the classroom. Any word or activity that gives privilege to one student or takes the power from another is hightened by my experience. Included in this analysis is my position of power in the environment; I have to step back constantly and see how my "education" as a woman in a patriachical society that spawns domination through masculine notions as well as the false notions of race inferiority and superiority influences my teaching. This is crucial when I use any approach and any material.
3/11/11
I've had an idea.
The new idea is to give the groups of three big paper for Who, what, when, where, and why. Since we're focusing on the voiceless I'm going to do the first big sheet example on the board - Starting with Breath, Eyes, Memory - and we're going to generate as many words as possible for the why. Then each group will get one related to something we've done in the classroom - female mutilation in Senegal, aborigine women in Australia (Rabbit Proof Fence), Chief Seattle's speech My People in the US, Native American boarding schools in the US... When I give them the paper, I'll give them with two bright crayons and I'll use those minute times and when they get to why as a group they're going to have to generate as many words as possible for the time. Am I making too much fun of the seriousness of oppression? I hope not; I think they'll remember a lot more this way.
Challenges in the classroom
Getting students to understand the idea of community and not competition.
Dealing with various cultural views of learning and success.
Getting students to contribute equally in the group projects.
Sharing voice
women taking ownership of their voices
men learning how to share the power of voice
-----
Today 3/15 it is about the importance of dialogue. As I concentrate on the activity in English 103 I keep looking at the tiny details - where I stand, how the students move, and what they say. Today, I arrived and pulled up the bbc to talk about Japan and the earthquake. I asked them if they knew and I noticed that a lot more people are looking at news. So, I thought back and wondered about the difference between requiring them to look at the news on one hand and bringing the news to the classroom as a part of our conversation/interaction. Today, I asked if they knew and they did and then I asked why knowing was important to us - how are we connected - they brought up the economy and we shared our bits - I always tell them I'm not a scholar of the topic, but since I love to learn I read... Someone said that they read about the infrastructure - the buildings and we were able to compare it with Haiti. We connected the economy to the fact that they make things we buy and the dependence between - we talked about nuclear plants and they recalled Hiroshima and I brought up the bbc and photos of family - I asked if they knew who had nuclear plants and how many and they guessed the States because of power and then we looked up and saw the numbers per country - (this gives them a real understanding of who has power).... I pushed them through questions to make connections across borders and we talked about the ring of fire. This led into a sharing of bits of information about how islands are formed - Pangaea and ice age and constantly changing earth and our inhabiting of the planet. But it brought them to us and us to them to see the ring in color on screen.
DIALOGUE and Freire - We moved into the Why Women? project and I realized I'm always on the edge of a little worry. Have I given them too much? Are they getting the connections? And then I stop and look and for the most part (there is always the student (or two) who is sitting back and letting the others do the work while they chat - often the chat is about the project but they are not really working) students are in constant negotiation about the progress the words and the symbols; I realize that the more they call me to the group to ask a question, get advice, or get my okay... means that the learning is going on, that they are engaged, and that they are thinking. Today each call brought out a story from memory or in process that is an example of why women.
SEVEN INTELLIGENCES AND VYGOTSKY My observations of us in the class brings home to me something so obvious and at the same time so distant. This is because of training and the taken for granted notion of teacher as expert - as if somehow outside of the experience. It is now clear to me that the seven intelligences are the seven senses and that this concept is one that includes the teacher and all of his/her senses.
Posts: The beginning is continuous and then there are separate posts for the days I'm in the classroom.
The novel is Breath, Eyes, Memory by Danticat and it's the Spring semester of 2011. I've used the book before but it always feels completely new. I'm always asking myself about projects and wondering if my plans are student centered. I keep in mind that my position and my identity matters as much as the students. I step inside myself again to find the right thinking. I find ways to keep myself cognizant of my own socialization process - the colonization of Guyanese society by the British which has left me with hegemonic ideas of race and class that must always be interrogated; along with the Americanized canon of knowledge presented to me in the universities. This knowledge was also riddled with dominant messages of race and class. I'm also aware of the patriarchal messages of gender that are normalized in the society and my role in imparting any of that knowledge to students. Will my approach and my attitude reflect my beliefs; will they stand up to my principles? Am I opening spaces for exploration and questioning in order to allow my students the agency required to think differently?
My hypothesis is that if I do this examination as I work with the students my teaching strategies and student responses will highlight for me how the process of critical thinking is working itself out in our classroom community. I hope that it will give me a better understanding and more evidence and support to ideas about change; if a paradigm shift is needed, are these methods helping students to grow as literate individuals while at the same time facilitating their understanding of owning their voices and using this agency?
The project this semester called "Why Women?" came out of our progress and process in English 103 - a class I see as a critical analysis reading class. The semester's discussions started with the presentation of a UCSB youtube where Danticat's declares that she focuses her writing on social issues and that she makes a point of raising the voices of the voiceless.
The "voiceless" became a part of our vocabulary and this word led us into the large group discussions and it became a lens for viewing other written materials. In Breath, Eyes, Memory the narrator and main characters are women; so we focused on women as a voiceless group. Then we crossed borders to see women in different times (or see how they were missing) and in different countries and cultures. This led to a critique of women's lives today.
We then created bridges to other voiceless groups - Chief Seattle, Native American, Aborigines in Australia, women and female mutilation in Senegal, Native American children's forced removal to boarding schools... All of this is an attempt to understand the dynamics of power.
I'll go through things one at a time. My first task is to look at the material.
Breath, Eyes, Memory
Haitian revolution
Chief Seattle
Rabbit Proof Fence
Native American boarding schools
The Shape of Water - female mutilation in Senegal
Patriarchy - definition
virginity testing
Ton Ton Macoutes
FB - articles on current events sent there for members and to bring up to class
Activities
reading journals
research summaries
Why Women? large poster teaching project
on going blog for a week and a half that must teach about something that has been left out/voiceless - that has been made invisible
Who, Where, What, When, and Why process game based on class material and domination
gender activity - where men and women exchange roles and write down how their lives change - what they think is gained and lost with the gender switch
---------------------
3/11/2011
Thinking through our activities in the classroom I've noticed/noted a number of things.
The importance of my identity, where I place myself in the classaroom, the voice and language I use; how all of this elements affect students are becoming more clear. My experiences as a woman and as a black person in both negative and postive ways contribute to my teaching on a daily basis. It continues to make me more and more sensitive to my students' identities and positions in the classroom. Any word or activity that gives privilege to one student or takes the power from another is hightened by my experience. Included in this analysis is my position of power in the environment; I have to step back constantly and see how my "education" as a woman in a patriachical society that spawns domination through masculine notions as well as the false notions of race inferiority and superiority influences my teaching. This is crucial when I use any approach and any material.
3/11/11
I've had an idea.
The new idea is to give the groups of three big paper for Who, what, when, where, and why. Since we're focusing on the voiceless I'm going to do the first big sheet example on the board - Starting with Breath, Eyes, Memory - and we're going to generate as many words as possible for the why. Then each group will get one related to something we've done in the classroom - female mutilation in Senegal, aborigine women in Australia (Rabbit Proof Fence), Chief Seattle's speech My People in the US, Native American boarding schools in the US... When I give them the paper, I'll give them with two bright crayons and I'll use those minute times and when they get to why as a group they're going to have to generate as many words as possible for the time. Am I making too much fun of the seriousness of oppression? I hope not; I think they'll remember a lot more this way.
Challenges in the classroom
Getting students to understand the idea of community and not competition.
Dealing with various cultural views of learning and success.
Getting students to contribute equally in the group projects.
Sharing voice
women taking ownership of their voices
men learning how to share the power of voice
-----
Today 3/15 it is about the importance of dialogue. As I concentrate on the activity in English 103 I keep looking at the tiny details - where I stand, how the students move, and what they say. Today, I arrived and pulled up the bbc to talk about Japan and the earthquake. I asked them if they knew and I noticed that a lot more people are looking at news. So, I thought back and wondered about the difference between requiring them to look at the news on one hand and bringing the news to the classroom as a part of our conversation/interaction. Today, I asked if they knew and they did and then I asked why knowing was important to us - how are we connected - they brought up the economy and we shared our bits - I always tell them I'm not a scholar of the topic, but since I love to learn I read... Someone said that they read about the infrastructure - the buildings and we were able to compare it with Haiti. We connected the economy to the fact that they make things we buy and the dependence between - we talked about nuclear plants and they recalled Hiroshima and I brought up the bbc and photos of family - I asked if they knew who had nuclear plants and how many and they guessed the States because of power and then we looked up and saw the numbers per country - (this gives them a real understanding of who has power).... I pushed them through questions to make connections across borders and we talked about the ring of fire. This led into a sharing of bits of information about how islands are formed - Pangaea and ice age and constantly changing earth and our inhabiting of the planet. But it brought them to us and us to them to see the ring in color on screen.
DIALOGUE and Freire - We moved into the Why Women? project and I realized I'm always on the edge of a little worry. Have I given them too much? Are they getting the connections? And then I stop and look and for the most part (there is always the student (or two) who is sitting back and letting the others do the work while they chat - often the chat is about the project but they are not really working) students are in constant negotiation about the progress the words and the symbols; I realize that the more they call me to the group to ask a question, get advice, or get my okay... means that the learning is going on, that they are engaged, and that they are thinking. Today each call brought out a story from memory or in process that is an example of why women.
SEVEN INTELLIGENCES AND VYGOTSKY My observations of us in the class brings home to me something so obvious and at the same time so distant. This is because of training and the taken for granted notion of teacher as expert - as if somehow outside of the experience. It is now clear to me that the seven intelligences are the seven senses and that this concept is one that includes the teacher and all of his/her senses.
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