Relationships

I would like to get rid of my unhealthy relationship with silly-o'clock. I would like to renew my delightful relationship with bed, sleep, and dream. Homework is the one keeping me from my beloved bed, sleep, and dream.

Cycle of homework and lack of sleep

The later I stay up, the more tired I get. The more tired I get, the more I get distracted. The more I get distracted, the longer it takes me to do homework. The longer it takes me to do homework, the longer I stay up. It is an endless cycle. I don’t think there’s ever been a night this semester where I actually finished everything and got to bed at a reasonable hour. In fact… I don’t think there’s been a night where I finished everything—including those nights where I went to bed at unreasonable hours.

education

I am currently reading Anzia Yezierska's Bread Givers for my American Lit (1920-1960) class. I just ran across an intriguing passage that I wanted to share:

"Was the college only a factory, and the teachers machines turning out lectures by the hour on wooden dummies, incapable of response? Was there no time for the flash from eye to eye, from heart to heart? Was that vanishing spark of light that flies away quicker than it came unless it is given life at the moment by the kindling breath of another mind--was that to be shoved aside with, 'I'm too busy,. I have no time for recitation outside of class hours?'" (224).

Sometimes it certainly seems like school is a factory and students cannot respond! I want my class to have that "flash," that "spark of light...given life...by the kindling breath of another mind." To me, that's what education should be like. The sharing and exchange of knowledge, ideas, experiences. Students should be able to speak their minds and share with the class. There should be discussion, not wooden dummies. And the class periods should not be machine lectures. Teachers shouldn't be cogs in a gear of a machine. Teachers are people. So are students. And everyone is the teacher and the learner.

And now, I've got to finish this book for class, so--though I wish I could go on--I must leave you with that.

The Problem with Essays

I am writing a paper which is due today. I started it last night. And this is what I was thinking:

I am supposed to be working on my 3 page Great Gatsby paper for American Lit—which is due tomorrow (Wednesday). It is 21h00 and I would rather be reading. Doing Linguistics homework for Thursday, reading, watching Bones, taking a shower, knitting, looking up various things—blog hopping, etc. That’s all. Not this paper. I have stated what I believe the focus of my chosen passage happens to be. It’s all about perception. Now that I’ve said that, I have nothing left to say. I’ve already written some very crude ideas…stream of consciousness almost. All the ideas have to do with my topic are crude and rough and raw, and I do not have the patience to polish up the wording/structure. I just want to put all the ideas and content down on the page and have done with it.

That’s the problem with essays; they’re painstaking. You can’t just write down what you think. You then have to organize, revise, reorganize, and nit-pick everything. It takes time. And when you are doing an assignment the night before (not because you intentionally left it to the last minute, but because you had other homework due sooner and wanted to make sure that that was finished first), you don’t have the luxury of taking your time and nitpicking. You only have the chance to generate ideas and put them on paper and then read through what you’ve written and fixed major errors.

I am awesomesaucespectaularamazingwonderfulisticexpialadocious!

How do you write a personal statement (for an application) advocating how awesome you are and why people should hire you, which "sheds light on you as a person" when you don't know why they should hire you and don't know how awesome you are, etc.?
How can I tell someone to hire me and write a statement telling “Oh, look at how awesome I am” if I don’t know how awesome I am? I think I would be an awesome teacher. I want to be a teacher because I want to be a good influence on these kids’ lives. I want to show them that there are people there for them, that they are not alone, that they don’t have to be alone when figuring out tough questions about life. I want to be a teacher to help kids think, to help them find their voice, to help them discover what they believe and what they think is important and what they’re passionate about, I want to help them discover who they are, who they want to be, what they want to do, where they want to go, etc. I think this growing process if fascinated. I love people and helping people and contributing to the community. I love reading and writing and I want to show kids the value in both things. I want to relate texts to students’ lives and interest them in the texts and in the topics.

How can I give reasons why people should hire me if I am wondering “Why would they want to hire me?!” I don’t know the answers. “Provide a statement that sheds light on you as a person, your interests and activities, your professional ambitions, and your philosophy of education.” Shed light of me as a person? I am Refreshingly Quirky, effervescent, cuddly, tall, considerate, fun-loving, whimsical book-loving writer.

As for interests and activities… I am an English major and want to be an English teacher. I like reading and writing you dumbasses.
I care about what the students think. I care about them as people. I want to share my passion for reading and writing with them because these things have been a big part of my life for a very long time and I don not know what I would do without them.
Students should want to learn. They should like learning. I think a student should learn what they want when they want and they won’t absorb material until they are ready to learn something. Until they WANT to learn it.

But really, all of that isn't important. What is important is that I am telling you all this stuff and I am very trustworthy. When I say I am awesome, you should believe me. You should not doubt anything I put in a statement that you will read before deciding whether or not I am worthy of being a student teacher at your school. I am awesome and wonderful and the best. The end. That is all you need to know.

Unschooling

I have just discovered the term “unschooling.” I have never before run across this concept though I believe it is the best way to learn and follows my personal philosophy of education. To me, the ideal educational system is one where the student wants to learn and he or she chooses what he or she wants to learn when he or she wants to do it. I believe the role of a teacher is to help the students discover themselves, find new ways of viewing something, become better thinkers, enrich their lives, and become contributing members of society. The role of the teacher is to help the student figure out who he or she is and who he or she wants to be, find what he or she is passionate about, and find what he or she wants to do. What the student “wants to do” and “wants to be” is a dynamic situation. The student will change. After he or she has been a mechanic for a while he or she might want to be a chef or a sailor or a teacher or a translator. Why do we have to “Grow up” and pick one thing to be for the rest of our lives? That’s silly. Life shouldn’t be about getting to some point in the future. It should be about exploring, learning, discovering, adventuring. Think about it: we are not put in to school the second we first draw breath, and yet, we learn. We learn to speak, we learn to write our names, we learn the colors, how to count, and we are always, always asking questions and wanting to know why. Why should education be any different as we grow older.

I now have this image in my head, a scene really—almost like one of my story ideas—of a school. No, not a school. I’d call it the Temple of Learning. It would be like a boarding school. People of all ages would come together and live at the school. There would be an extensive library, computer lab, science labs, classrooms, etc. There would be classes in all manner of things and students would pick and choose what they wanted to do that day. If they did not want to go to class, that was fine. They would learn when and how they wanted. Everyone is the teacher and everyone is the student. True, there would be Temple of Learning Staff (called…. Dedicates) who were usually in the role of the teacher most often, leading class, but they are not required to be experts. They simply facilitate and mediate and direct students where they can find information, answer questions if they can, etc. There would be things like art, music, math, science, literature, history, languages, philosophy, linguistics, meditation, swimming, horse back riding, dance, fencing, archery, juggling, communications, astronomy, anthropology, psychology, sociology, sailing, religion, etc. If there was something a student wanted to learn and no one present could teach it (and books and internet were not enough), an expert in the field would be called to give a talk. The entire school could come if they wanted—but it would be a choice. Like a Sci-Fi con or Women’s Spirit. Field trips would be organized, hands-on labs, etc. There would be plenty of extra curricular activities and a large support system.

A student should not have to feel guilty for not going to class because he or she is busy experiencing a different aspect of life. A student should not have to postpone doing something he or she wanted in order to do homework. What if the student was reading a blog and came across an unknown term? The student would then investigate and therefore would be learning. Why force memorization and make learning a chore if the student can find pleasure in learning when it is done on his or her own terms?