I suppose, in more ways than one, that I have to accept the simple fact that just because one can do something doesn't mean that one can effectively teach someone else how to do it. Most of the time I think that if someone excels at a particular skill then it should be rather simple to pass those ideas and, by virtue of those, the inherent skills that come along with it, but, WRONG. It's a very basic thing to explain something to someone - an idea, a concept, directions, but to actually break the information down, in a way that the "student" can understand it and then, to check for understanding, only to realize that it's not there and then the whole process has to start all over, but in a different way, you know, it's exhausting because the teaching and the learning never really find an end. They just continue to roll over one another until you've either gathered so much useless information that you have nothing else to say about a subject or until you lose interest in what you're doing to the point where you just go "Fuck it" "Moving on." I guess it just comes down to the type of teacher that you are or the type of personality you have, or both really.
I try to imagine the base necessity of a student who doesn't understand something the first ten times that I try to teach it. I figure if I can reach that particular student, then I'm going to reach those who get it one the first, second and so forth tries, up to ten and for those who need even more than ten tries, I offer up other ways in which they can explore the material. For those who get it on the first pass through, well, they have a whole lot more autonomy over where they are headed in the following few weeks and they can work accordingly. To me, teaching a college class is inherently easier in a lot of ways than it is trying to go over Linear Regression in Algebra with Nick or teaching units of measurement to Ty. I have to account for how they learn as much as what they are learning. I have to do that in my classes too, but those students are grown (well, we like to think that their brains have fully developed - most of them have) and that we don't have to spend as much time on the social/emotional development of them since they are already "adults" so to speak. A child, even a teenager, requires a framing of the information in such a way that it speaks to them on THAT day, in that moment. I've seen my own kids struggle to comprehend a concept as they are hunched over their homework like decomposing zombies, grunting from time to time, asking for sustenance to get them through the hard times. But, I tell them to go to bed and get up in the morning or leave it until the next night and, given who and how they are the next day, BAM, they get it. I think we should all and would all do best to remember that. After all, we are all teachers on the most basic level...
I spent a handful of hours doing research today on Special Education Law and the more I read, the more I wanted to read. Now that probably wasn't the case when I was in college and I had to forcibly read something that I wasn't in the mood for or that I didn't think applied to me like Homer or Aristotle. But now, the tasks that I set out for myself in regards to learning are all things that I WANT or need to learn because they are personally relevant and interesting and helpful. Although my students may not yet see that, I hope that they will begin to understand that there is purpose behind everything that we do, but because they didn't choose it per se, they can't always see the point.
I think it's so important to validate and to support the idea that learning is a daily, ongoing process and just because you don't go to "school" or "work" at a job outside of the home, that learning isn't taking place. Students have such a rich and extensive knowledge about so many different things that I can't help but wonder that if they had the chance to plot their own curriculum in each subject, if they wouldn't be even more successful than ever before. Of course, some of them wouldn't - they would just assign "A's" to themselves and to everyone else and that would be the end of it. But most of them would get it I think. Most of them would look at the material and really attempt to master it. Critical thinking, after all, requires that innate level of thinking about your thinking.
I remember sometimes staring in the mirror at my reflection while brushing my teeth or putting on makeup (who has time or wants to do that anymore), and kind of thinking to myself that I didn't even recognize my face, that it looked strange to me, foreign... it was as if I were looking into someone else's eyes, considering, evaluating. I like to think that students do the same, particularly writing students, particularly my writing students. I don't know, maybe I should just give them all "A's." I'd have a lot more free time anyway...Going to sleep now.
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