Last week was long and, for a variety of reasons, very difficult. The weekend was not that hot either - why we couldn't play the last two and a half quarters with the energy of the first quarter and a half, I don't know, but I completely lost my voice yelling rude words about it in the stadium. Anyway, the good part is: this week is off to a much better start. For instance, when we talked about Plato's dilemma and authority and all that today, I thought we were headed in a direction that my personal compass isn't too fond of. It seemed at first like the only answer would be to accept practically ANY reading of a given text and to treat all evaluations equally. All I could think of was the time someone in Adolescent Literature tried to tell us that S.E. Hinton's The Outsiders was actually about the American Indian Movement. First of all, I'm pretty sure that would have been kinda tough, chronologically speaking, and second, Hinton was FIFTEEN years old when she wrote that book, and it wasn't supposed to be her big history project or anything. There is absolutely nothing in the story to promote this idea. Even so, the professor for that class (who I really respect and like a lot) could only nod his head in weak acknowledgement, because he had never demanded that we make our readings VALID. And this is what saved class for me today - Rosenblatt's two rules. I mean, I'm all for interesting explanations, and I certainly want my students to feel that they can speak up. But I would like them to think for a minute first, and sometimes I feel like certain groups would accuse me of stifling students because of that. I was VERY glad to hear that proteach is not one of those groups.

This is my teaching philosophy (duh.) I'm just posting it so I won't have to retype it tomorrow on the Macs at school.

I believe that the most important thing I can do for my students is to let them see the value in learning, generally speaking, and more specifically in the topics we discuss. This should work well as a guide for my teaching because it is not often an automatic process, as much as we might hope that it would be, and it will require that I continue to be thoughtful in my treatment of students, in my planning and delivery of instruction, and in my attention to the subject area and how it ties not only to other subjects but to the overall understanding of our world.
This goal demands that I regard my students as people with cognitive function rather than as otherwise inert animals who respond only to extrinsic rewards. The idea that learning is its own reward may sound trite, and there are certainly several difficulties associated with it, but it is this perspective that allows us to differentiate between “education” and “training”. It is central to something we spend a lot of time talking about – respect.
It is also central to the considerate planning of a lesson. If I am supposed to let the students see its value, I ought to be able to see it myself. This is not to say that what I find interesting or worthwhile will necessarily match what my students will find interesting or worthwhile – clearly, I would not insist that students agree with me about everything. I will, however, insist that opinions be informed and reasoned. A large part of my task is not to open the metaphorical doors to knowledge – they’re already opened – but to encourage students either to walk through them or have good reasons for refraining. I want to pique their interest as often as I can, because the self-prompted learning that might follow is for me the best sign I have done my job well.
I can only be with students for nine months. If the results of my work with them last only for that period of time, then I have engaged in a useless endeavor, like the demon who had to “straighten” a curly hair. Every time he let it go, it went back to being curly, because he had not modified the essence of that hair. On the other hand, I certainly don’t want to turn out a pack of clones whose essence has been modified to match in every detail my own. Instead, my real ambition is to inspire students to see the connections, ask the questions, and above all, enjoy the answers in what would become a self-perpetuated, lifelong education.