Thursday, October 18, 2012

talking in class and talking with faculty

Today, I observed Naomi Clark's English 1000 class. The class was divided into half this week since they had turned in their final copy of a paper. During today's class, each student read two pages of his/her work out loud and gave complimentary comments to the other students. I thought this was a great idea. bell hooks writes, "I have students write short paragraphs that they read aloud so that we all have a chance to hear unique perspectives and we are all given an opportunity to pause and listen to one another" (186). This activity does several things: it allows students to celebrate his/her work, it allows a student to celebrate other classmates' works, and it creates an opportunity to shift the authority and power to the students. And while the papers they were presenting weren't personal or unique, the students' presentations gave them all a chance to regard each other as scholars and authorities.

hooks also recognizes that a lot of these "uncomfortable" discussions need to happen with the faculty and staff first before a real change can happen in the classroom. This reminded me of when the former school I worked at had gone a few months into the school year without having that type of discussion with the staff.  Turns out, our goal of creating an specifically focused pedagogy wasn't being implemented since so many of the teachers had different understandings of race and class in the classroom. The discussion lasted several hours and many people had stormed out of the room during a few tense moments. And while things were not resolved at the end of the day, we had begun to come to a mutual understanding of our role in the classrooms. The discussion still persists (I assume), and because of this on-going conversation, I think the students in the classroom benefit.

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