Teacher Knows Best?

A New Spelling of My Name


Audre Lorde's piece on her struggles as a young girl pulled on my heart strings a little bit.  I understand how frustrating it can be when you are younger and have any kind of set back or disability.  I struggled with a lisp and reading comprehension at a young age and I remember how frustrated I would get when something wouldn't click.  I was especially frustrated by the lisp because with a name like "Sarah,"  you are being corrected constantly.  I however was lucky enough to have a strong support system both at home and in school.  It is hard to imagine why anyone would go into teaching if they did not want to help the students succeed.  Although I realize this passage was written from a very different time, and I'm sure that race had a large part to do with how she was treated.

Teaching as a Subversive Activity


This excerpt by Neil Postman and Charles Weingartner is possibly my favorite piece to date in this class. The points they bring up and the ideas they put forward were both thought provoking hilarious!  I enjoyed reading each one of their ideas and by the end was hoping we could actually put them into motion.  I have had many amazing teachers in my life time, but as for the other ones...I think we should propose these changes.  I especially liked the idea of having teachers who "know" their subject be forced to teach something completely new.  This would be a perfect approach for math and science teachers.  I have had far too many teachers that just don't understand why the class isn't understanding a concept or equation.  When someone knows these areas well, I can see why they teach in a certain way, but it does not help us, the students who have no idea what they are talking about.  Another favorite was the idea that teachers must take a test created by the students on what the students know.  This would be something interesting to start now and have each class do for many years to come.  We could then look back at how our young society has changed over the years, and what was important to them at the time.