This is the last blog post!!! As per Prof. Jackson's request, any blog post that you have not commented on, please make sure that you do so by Monday so she can complete her grading as soon as possible. Thank you all, it was nice having class with you!
--Mellisa
I found the article "When Things Turn Ugly" interesting. The article addresses problems in school discipline, where students threaten violence and, regardless of their intention to act on it, are punished. Of course students should be discouraged from using threats to defend themselves, but the author makes a good point: students are still children, children threaten each other, and all children (even the perceived "dangerous" ones) should be treated equally, with the same levels of support and encouragement. The author mentions a professor he had who said, "You are going to be high school teachers, and most of you love your subject matter and will try to pattern yourselves after your favorite college instructors. But you would do better to emulate your favorite elementary school teachers." The relationship between a college student and a professor is different from the relationship between a grade-school student and teacher--not only is the former a relationship between two adults who are *both* responsible for their own behavior, but the relationship does not necessarily require the same kind of supervision merged with support. It is not the professor's job to teach students how to interact with others in a healthy and supportive way--but that is the teachers job. When one student threatens another, it would do much better for a teacher to teach the students how to solve their conflict peacefully than to assign a knee-jerk punishment.
ReplyDeleteI thought the article "Unsung Heroes" was fairly interesting. It is about a teacher who strives to show her students that people can be heroes even if they don't become famous, in order to show that it isn't the fame that matters but helping people and doing something important. She would assign an unsung hero, male or female, to each of her students and then have them go and do research on that person. Afterwards, they would give a small presentation, acting like the person they researched, to the class. I thought this was interesting because I think, too often, we focus on the heroes who became famous for their acts and we don't look at the people who did important things but didn't win awards or change the world or become famous, and students need to know that they shouldn't strive for becoming famous and that they should try to help people regardless.
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