Thanks for your post Hanh. I think you’ve landed on a good compromise, allowing students to use technology but setting limits. I’ve allowed computers in my classroom and I know some students are surfing the internet and Gchatting, Facebook, etc. But I also know some are taking notes, looking up things relevant to class and so forth. I think the latter uses are really valuable. I take all my notes on a laptop now and it’s way easier for me than paper notes. Plus they are searchable.
Author: Jake Keyel
Comment on Shut Up And Listen by Jake Keyel
Thanks for sharing your experiences. I think listening is very important but I would tweak the idea that the instructor should “shoot down” students at any point. Certainly I’ve encountered students who have a lot to say and not a lot of information behind it but I see my role rather than to stop them from voicing (what is often) opinion but rather to provide examples, counter examples, and points of fact for them to mull over.
I might also question a dichotomy between intro level courses where one should “shut up and listen” and upper level courses where students have acquired enough knowledge to help them form opinions. I’m not sure education happens in such a linear way and I’ve seen students come to intro courses with some knowledge and come to upper level courses on particular topics with very little knowledge, for example.
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Comment on Teach Less by Jake Keyel
I agree completely. The bidirectional or even more complex metaphors of movement really do a better job of describing how education does (and should) work. Maybe it’s a circle or infinity symbol, something like that but also three dimensional with information entering the circle from the top or bottom, circulating then leaving again in a different direction from which it came.
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Comment on Curiosity requires moral courage by Jake Keyel
I really like your emphasis on humility. I think that’s central to a more liberatory pedagogy. Teachers/instructors who are willing to admit they don’t know everything and also admit that students know things the instructor doesn’t is very Freirean. Humility helps to break down hierarchy, which is in a goal to strive for in education and elsewhere throughout society.
Comment on Authoritarian pedagogy by Jake Keyel
Hanh, your comparison of authoritarian education as writing on a blank page and Freirean education rather as bringing to light already existing writing is really nice.
It’s interesting the national curriculum you wrote about in Vietnam. In the US at the, I believe, primary and secondary level they have implemented the “common core” which is meant to be a standardized curriculum used throughout the country and many critiques I’ve seen highlight the difficulty/problematic nature of trying to get all teachers to teach in one way and all students to learn in one way. It seems certainly closer to authoritarian than liberatory.
Comment on Improving Classroom Performance through Diversity by Jake Keyel
I thought this point was very interesting in the post as well. I also have typically let students pick their own groups because when I was an undergraduate I didn’t like being forced into groups with students I didn’t know. But, in light of the reality of implicit biases it does seem some measures could/should be taken to ensure students aren’t consciously or unconsciously grouping themselves based on biases.
Comment on Inclusive Pedagogy by Jake Keyel
Your post identifies an issue which I think Nancy Fraser’s work on justice in the 21st century might shed some light on. She has a book called Scales of Justice in which she writes that to achieve justice it is necessary to have recognition (diversity), redistribution, and representation. Each of these three aspects are necessary but not alone sufficient to achieve a just society. Diversity and recognition of those formerly excluded is important but without other changes, economic redistribution, equal access to education, healthcare, jobs, etc. and political representation for everyone to determine the contours of that redistribution, diversity does threaten to remain a “buzzword.”
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Comment on Who Am I in the Classroom? by Jake Keyel
You’re making me blush, thank you! Absolutely, I agree that authenticity is tied to approachability. Your point about admitting you don’t know everything seems so key as well. I definitely try to do that rather than fake my way through answering a question I really don’t know the answer to. I have to assume students appreciate that (and it’s never come back on an evaluation that students think I don’t know enough about the topic!)
Comment on Who Am I in the Classroom? by Jake Keyel
Thank you. It’s worked so far for me!
Comment on What Harry Potter Taught Me About Teaching: Be a McGonagall, not a Lockhart. by Jake Keyel
I’m going to jump on the bandwagon and say that when I saw your post was about Harry Potter, I had to comment. I’d never actually thought about it but there are a number of teaching strategies in the books/films that one could think about as archetypes for teaching role models/examples to avoid.
I definitely don’t see myself as a McGonagall, it requires asserting too much authority, something I try to avoid whenever possible. I’d like to think I’m more of a Lupin (wishful thinking, perhaps?). Lupin is patient, he explains the point of his exercises, and he takes a genuine interest in his students. I like Hagrid’s experiential teaching style as well, and I don’t work with live beasts so the risk of maiming is much lower in my classroom.
P.S. I love that scene. I remember it got big laughs in the theater when I saw it.
