I enjoyed reading through Kevin Giddens' "Do Nothing Teaching" blog last night.
http://kevingiddens.posterous.com/
His article "Reflection: Rigorous Practice or Joyful Play' resonated with me particularly. I found myself questioning the extent to which I have allowed or enabled 'joyful play' in my classes. I've been working at the same University for a second year now and I suspect I have settled into an unfavorable routine. I think my teaching methods haven't changed enough and I'm recycling many of the same materials and lessons.
I'm worried that a lot of my students would simply prefer me to stick to the text book provided and the teacher manual instructions for each lesson. One of the more senior professors in my department advised it because the students "just feel more comfortable with that". If students expect me to be the lecturer it's a challenge to not fulfill that expectation. To keep my job, I need good evaluations. It seems logical that I'm more likely to get these if students enjoy my classes and feel like they're learning. To do that I need to take classes out of their comfort zone. The more motivated and involved students seem receptive to self directed activities but they are a minority in many of my classes.
I want to make my lessons more playful for my students and I want them to construct their own learning practices more but is this really possible? How much divergence from a traditional class room can I get away with? How can I reconcile what is effective and enjoyable with the expectations of the students and the administration I work for? How can I reconcile the conflicting expectations of my students?
I really enjoyed your thoughts here... Kevin's ideas are really fabulous, aren't they?
ReplyDeleteYou bring up some crucial issues here. We may have visions of what we want to accomplish as teachers but the reality is, we have to keep our jobs. My sense is that the answer to all of your questions (at the end of the post) is YES YES YES. A teacher can do anything s/he chooses to do in any way s/he chooses to do it, but the problem is that there are forces working against this. Students have expectations, the staff has expectations, and we have our own limitations in terms of how much time and energy we can put into each class... But I think that all this points to a new question, namely, which limitations are REAL and which do we simply MAKE REAL? This is a tough question to answer because there is never a straightforward, clear answer. However, my point is that there is usually more possibility for "deviation" than one might suspect- besides, how does one figure out where the limitations exist if one never pushes them?
Great post, and thanks for being so forthcoming about your teaching.