Mrs. Stitham

I wish I could be as creative as everyone else with their sonnet writing abilities......no I don't. I won't lie. I enjoyed listening to Mrs. Stitham. I couldn't stop myself from agreeing with her at so many levels that I did interject that and probably interrupted her flow in speaking. Thank you for getting her information to me. I am contacting her this weekend to speak to my district office and the other teachers on the curriculum rewrite committee in hopes that it doesn't just inspire the other young teachers who are in on the process, but I hope she revitalizes some of the veteran teachers who seem to be on board just to check a block in hopes of getting a position in the district office after the process concludes.

I followed her 3 levels like everyone else did and it seems to fit all the other graphic organizers out there that justify the statistics for education. But I think I was paying more attention to them because they are based on her real world teaching observations and not some book that molds the statistics to every kid in the country.

My hopes are that I will report back next week to the class that I had a successful outcome from drawing on her insight. But, if it's not, I will not call it a loss or a defeat because she at least has validated to me that I am following a line of thought or a philosophy of Language Arts education that not only means something but is correct despite the current trends to teach tests.

Thanks for including her in our class and our foundation in this learning process.

Susan Stitham & Shakespeare

I had the pleasure of first being introduced to Susan when I first entered the SOE program. She was the guest of honor/keynote speaker and boy did she speak. She spoke, for whatever length of time, without a breath of air.

I wasn't peeved by the lack of brevity but she had my full attention because she was talking about Shakespeare and OSHA. She had a lot of good points and I was particularly impressed because she was above or at least on par with my Shakespeare professor at the University. Anyway, she is a fantastic speaker who has the ability to embark on many topics and, for the most part, find her way back full circle. Usually.

I'm slightly jealous of Susan's speaking capabilities because she remains so close to the topic without going off on rampant tangents. I really would like to see her in a teaching setting because I bet the students would love her.

On a side note, I had recently found out that she sat in on a class (I don't remember when) that my old Shakespeare prof taught and she scoffed at a lot of his theories and ideas. I love insight like that because I, as a teacher, know we are not infallible.

Sestina for Susan Stitham

Oh Ms Stitham, bring on thou energy !

Fuel our flagging classroom with powered inquiry!

Dive into the fishbowl--

The clear waters of an authentic exam,

The metacognitive awareness of the mind vault.

Because, like clouds and starfish, different is each student.

 

How are we currently challenging each student?

Do we scaffold up from the literal text with any energy?

Help them bend and stretch; help them execute a limber pole-vault

Up, up and beyond the basest factual inquiry!

“To strive to seek to find” ways for them to look hard at each exam.

Though the word connotes containment, fluid swimming happens in a fishbowl.

 

Humans, if they still had gills, would feel at home in a fishbowl.

Comfort and ease is not true learning for each student!

At the end of the day, in a teacher’s final exam,

We should find within ourselves a deeper energy.

A bubble-peircing instrument for releasing the seeds of inquiry,

A muscled thrust and heave to open up the vault.

 

“An arched structure, usually of masonry, serving to cover a space”: is a vault.

Let us, as teachers, be this for our students above the fishbowl.

Let us be brick-bastions of inquiry,

Purveyors of discernment and thinking for each student

May we do this with quad-espresso Stitham energy!

And in the end we will pass the exam.

 

But to prepare only for the exam

Is to ignore how we are the overarching bridge, the vault,

The inspiring encouragers of student energy,

The challengers and gatekeepers of the fishbowl.

Leave not one behind as a straggler or bummer lamb- each student!

Kicking and bleating we will pull them into learned inquiry!

 

And after four sestets this gets tedious—this inquiry.

Why have I done this?  Is there some exam?

“Federally highly qualified” in archaic poetry forms—is this good for a student?

All my questions go unanswered, locked into a vault.

Like uneaten food-flakes drifting to the bottom of a fishbowl.

And I may not get it back, all this energy.

 

Somehow, some way, we should reach each student;

We should encourage individual inquiry.

 

We need to create and maintain our energy

To affect our students and to succeed at the genuine exam.

 

Answers and ideas are not locked into a vault

They are swimming, small and silent in a fishbowl.

 

 

 

Susan Stitham

Susan spoke about the Essential Learning Pyramid and the 3 level model of comprehension. Please add your thoughts about her presentation and how it may apply to your situation. Or, if you want to apply some of what she talked about, do it as a sonnet, from the perspective of Huck Finn, or through another connection. Actually, in the sake of time, your analysis can also be straight forward if you so choose.

Gayle's visit

This was a great presentation. I really enjoyed looking at her slides showing the different pieces of factual law that can guide how we should conduct our classes and what to be cautious of when it comes to discussions or projects.

I had some questions about the limits I can push as a teacher and I emailed them to Prof. Meath. Mostly my concern is what are we giving up by being extremely cautious in this day and age. Really, it comes down to doing what we feel we can afford to do as the teachers.

Ultimately, I am taking away a few things from this presentation. I have to be aware and I have to spend time thinking about the global implications of the things we do and say as teachers. Students come from a wide variety of backgrounds and so do their parents. We have to be aware that everything we do and say will be sent home altered, so making sure we are very clear and well documented is obviously the big picture I now see more clearly.

Jealousy breeds contempt

I really wanted an interesting title for this post. I thought about it for a while and this saying just kept running through my head and I realized it was true.

Jealousy:
Rafe's class was, in my opinion, an anomaly. I've been battling with my frosh to read Romeo & Juliet for two weeks now and have to babystep them through it. It is tedious language and it took me years to get comfortable with it. How in the hell is he getting these young kids to not only read it but enjoy it and comprehend it? In short, it's not fair.

Romeo and Juliet is a great story. There's love, death, Leonardo DiCaprio, hatred...it's these 14 and 15 year olds lives. Forget Hamlet and his damn monologues and supposed psychotic break; teen angst is where it's at.

It was nice to see that Rafe had a good rapport with his kids. It's encouraging and heartwarming and blah blah blah. I want MY kids to have the same eager attitudes towards Shakespeare, hell, towards any book that his did. I can only hypothesize that his kids wanted to learn because they were inner-city castoffs. Maybe with the risk of losing everything dangling right in front of them they decided to take a chance with academic success. I know for a fact that every single kid in my freshmen class could do well if they just put the effort in.

Contempt:
I was slightly annoyed when I found out that the movie was glamorized. I want to see kids beating each other up, throwing paper around their class, spilling drinks, tripping one another, failing, passing, taking tests, walking through the hallway. I want real life not some dramatized edited cut and paste version.
We all have great days. We all have days that we wish we could go back and re-do. Which days do we have more of? How many yards of tape are laying on the editing room floor?
Sure, we learn from our mistakes. That's a given. Why can't we learn from other people's mistakes? Isn't that why "America's Funniest Home Videos" is still on the air?
I'm not saying he's a bad teacher in any way. I'm more upset that downs weren't shown along with the ups. It's very...disappointing.

Education vs. Students vs. Free Speech

When it comes to the topic of free speech, I'm all over it. I believe in free speech. For everyone. I also believe in moderation and self-control as well as a time and a place. I might be mired in hypocrisy (alright, I definitely am) when I say that 14-16 year old students don't have enough experience to have a political opinion, therefore they shouldn't even want to display it. They're entirely too young to know what is going on in regards to a president or candidate. They learn through/from their parents or adopt beliefs that sits in contrary to public opinion.

I know I'm generalzing/stereotyping/making snap judgements overloaded with fallacious statements. But I have experience with this sort of thing. I had an opinion when I was their age. I did things just to piss off administration. And I did them well. For some reason, kids need to test the limits of everything. Speech, actions, quality of work, etc. Maybe it's the cause and effect. Maybe they're just out to ruffle status quo.

This brings me to my next point: How do they know they've gone too far? As asinine as it was to have "Bong hits 4 Jesus" on a poster, did they know the laws/rules they encroached upon? I suggest that within their education they learn about these cases. Maybe they'll come up with new ways to surprise us.

And where the hell were the parents??!