Talk is a valuable instructional tool.

In last weeks class we proved that talk is a valuable instructional tool in a few ways. The thing that spoke to me the most, however, was the clip we watched from freedom writers. This clip was a prime example of how by letting our students speak and actually listening to them, we can learn more about them than we do from the "Tell Me About You" worksheet we give them at the start of the year.

I really loved how in this clip Hilary Swank's character did not try to correct the students when they showed disdain toward her and her race, or the other races. By letting the students share their true feelings, Swank's character was able to gauge what types of literature would speak to them, as well as help them to see that they are not the only race, religion, or gender that has ever been oppressed.

I believe that in order to be effective teachers we must always be searching for ways to reach our students. It is impossible to do this if we do not allow them to express themselves, and of course, listen to what they have to say.

We must remember that talk is not only what we can hear. Sometimes talk is in drawings, or writing. At my field experience this year the teacher I worked with showed me a students portfolio that contained a picture he had drawn of his family and underneath were the works, creatively spelled, "My dad hits my sister." The teacher listened to the student and the family issue was resolved by child services. We must always be listening to our students, not only to better their learning but sometimes even their lives.

It is not enough to listen, we must encourage talk. Class and group discussions are a great way to do this. I also think that for older students "magic talk" is a wonderful activity. I personally plan on having a question box so that I can address questions in an anonymous and orderly manner. I plan on doing this because talk is a valuable instructional tool.

listening

I always find it interesting to talk about the types of listening. Of course discriminative listening is to vital in children learning their language, but I also like to think that it comes into play with my dog, who I speak with more than 97% of humans. He understands just chooses not to listen because his dad taught him Selective Listening. Selective listening, an annoying strand of Efferent Listening in which an individual does not hear what they do not want to hear. This listening form is prevalent in males ages 0-130 and is to blame for 100% of the chores around the house that don't get done because my boyfriend didn't "hear" me. I digress.

I think Efferent and Critical Listening, (note not selective), while vital, is hard to teach and assess. This combined with the fact that people always think what they are saying is important so people must be listening to them, often makes us over look listening all together. I think that teaching different strategies of note-taking along with listening is the most effective way to teach how to listening.

I am torn on assessing listening. I believe that we should assess it, however not for a grade. We should assess to see how affective our own teaching is. We should also assess listening, to see which of our students learn this way, and which ones would benefit from other ways of receiving information.

Oh propaganda. I was quite surprised when I realized we were learning about it. I automatically associate propaganda with WWII. Being the daughter of a marketing professor I have the opposite reaction to commercials than Dr. Duncan, I believe none of them. This is actually a serious issue. For example, not only did I think the Sham Wow should have been called the Scam Wow, but I actually believed it would be so nonabsorbent that it would actually spread liquid around instead of picking it up (leaving me crying on my kitchen floor after trying to clean up spilled dog bowl water for three hours). Like I said, it's an issue.

I think that teaching propganda in the elementary school is very important however. As a child I wanted everything I saw, because I really believed that the trampoline shoes would allow me to jump to the sky. Once I actually convinced my mom to get me the skate shoes that had wheels on the bottom of them (they were skates AND shoes!!) These were generation one skate shoes mind you, and my dreams were crushed when I landed on my butt for the 27th time because one set of wheels (it varied which side) decided they wanted to be shoes and not skates. The loss of control I felt when I realized that I could not control a pair of shoes with a personality disorder not only made me lose faith in every advertisment, but I believe contributed to the Obsessive Compulsive Disorder that I have been working through in therapy since.

In order to help our students understand all facets of our language, and to save their parents money on both the expensive cheap-toy and therapy front. I think teaching propoganda is important. And any student would be thrilled to learn about it by creating their own camercial or watching camericals in school. When fun meets learning is when students want to come to school--and isn't that the goal?

Observations

Although field experiences are time and money consuming (thank goodness gas has gone down) they normally very informative and fun. I'm working to accept the fact that when I am a teacher my students will not be quite as excited about my being there, since that will be daily.

This semesters field experiences have been amazing. I absolutely loved the first grade class I worked with. I loved them so much that I agreed to chaperon on their field trip, if it ever gets planned.

I had three field experiences with that class and they were all so great. The first two times I went to observe multiple students asked me if I was one girls mother. This girl, who had brown hair for the record, was amazingly adorable and I really would not have minded if she was my daughter (in you know ten years). Fortunately, I understand that six year-old's have no concept of age past elementary school so I forgave them for what I assume was adding a decade or more onto my life. That first afternoon I informed my, brown hair, boyfriend that I had seen what our daughter would look like when she was six years old. Once he started breathing again it was clear he was not amused.

Once the students clarified I did not birth any of them, they were very happy to show me what they were working on, ask me for help, and try their hardest to use me as a dictionary/thesaurus. They were slightly bummed when I referred them to the multiple other resources in the room including their word wall and that outdated book that had the words in alphabetacial order followed by their definitions.

Thanks to these field experiences I got to see first hand what first grade curriculum is like and hear about the difficulties and joys of it from an established teacher. Because of these field experiences I think I would like to teach first grade. Although I will have to get used to reading inventive spelling (I spent three minutes trying to figure out what word a student meant by "psp" before I realized he has used the abbrivated term for "play station personal), I think teaching first grade would be incredibly rewarding. I really love reading and writing and I think that that love will really encourage my future students to get excited to learn those all important skills.

There is another plus to teaching first grade which is that the students will, more than likely, not be taller than me yet. I hope.