This class has been an eye-opener for me. I am a very literal person who does not like to “look for meaning” when reading. For this reason, this class has been very challenging for me, but at the same time, I’ve really enjoyed it. I’ve enjoyed reading the different articles because they’ve told stories from different perspectives than my own. I’ve also enjoyed reading other people’s blog entries. I think it’s so amazing that so many people can read the exact same thing, and yet get so many different things out of the reading.
I have chosen the quote from Michael Foucault that best represents my learning from this course material: There are times in life when the question of knowing if one can think differently than one thinks, and perceive differently than one sees, is absolutely necessary if one is to go on looking and reflecting at all. First of all, I did question myself at the beginning of the semester as to whether or not I would be able to see the different perspectives of the people whom we read about. I was born and raised in a small rural town, where most people are very, and think very, similar to each other. I now teach in the same county in which I grew up, in a different small rural town, with basically the same population. When you’ve grown up around a certain culture, it’s hard to “put yourself in others’ shoes” and “feel” what people from other cultures feel.
After reading the syllabus for this class, I wasn’t sure if I would be able to make connections between myself and my experiences and the articles we read. I was so surprised when reading the articles to find myself making connections to each article in some way or another. Sometimes, I would make a connection between a person in an article and a student whom I had taught, such as in Hicks’ book with Jake and Laurie. Sometimes, I would make a connection between my childhood and the experience a person was having in the article, such as in Perry’s article concerning storytelling. Sometimes, I would just have strong feelings towards statements/ideas the authors made in various articles, such as Henry’s article on finding one’s voice. These connections I made were very exciting for me because I was unsure at first if I was going to be able to make any connections at all.
I always reflect on myself as a teacher after each lesson and especially at the end of each year. I think about what I could have done differently in order to better help my students. I feel that I will be able to do a better job of reflecting after lessons because of what I have learned throughout this course. There are so many things I haven’t taken into account when reflecting in the past: students’ discourses, home lives, gender, ethnicity, race, etc. I never knew how much of a difference these things make in relation to a student’s literacy learning. I feel I do a really good job of teaching children on their instructional level and also of learning about the interests of my students outside school. Now, I think I will be able to do an even better job of this.
Marsha Warren