Other than Fenstermacher and Biesta

            Even though we had the Fenstermacher and the Biesta texts, we had many other readings in this class. I still love “Edwin and Phyllis”. I felt that it was so contradicting and negative that it made me want to push on through to becoming a teacher even more. It was a way of showing us the negative sides to teaching. I feel that I have thought through many of those negative areas of teaching before.

            There were definitely some interesting and challenging readings throughout the semester. There were even some controversial readings, like the critical race theory pieces and I felt that the “Feministic Pedagogy” readings could have caused quite a contradiction within our classroom. I liked the different readings. They all had their own little qualities that made me like and/or dislike them. They were all informative though, no matter if I was a fan of them or not.

            Another reading that I really liked was Kohn’s “’Well, Duh!’ – Ten obvious truths we shouldn’t be ignoring”. This article was a quick read but it made me think. I liked how it took simple things about education that may easily be overlooked because they are so simple. It made me think about how the homework I may be giving my students can keep them from other areas of development. Also, the way that it talked about having memorization in teaching and learning. Just because you can memorize and regurgitate does not mean you are smart or even that you are learning. I think the simpleness of the article is what made me look deeper at it. That concept makes me think of the Montessori chapter we just read. The “Well, Duh!” article stayed simple and clear to its purpose. I felt that it was just a good article.

The Biesta (Beast Of A) Book Experience!

Reading the chapters in “The Beautiful Risk of Education” by Biesta (2013) has been an interesting and challenging time. Biesta’s views were different than those that I have been used to hearing about. I thought it was a great way to be introduced to how people from other countries view education and what it entails. Biesta didn’t focus on the strength of education and how great it can be. Instead, he dug into the weaknesses of education. He pulled out ideas that have not been brought to mind so directly before in my experiences. I would like to be able to hear some type of presentation from Biesta, like a TED talk. That would be interesting to see and might make his views a little more clear.

I really did like how he points out that students are not objects, but are subjects. Students can’t be treated like objects that can be moved and thrown through hoops. They need to be treated like they matter and like we want to teach them and help them have learning experiences. Biesta made me think about the way that I would communicate with my students. I wan to be able to communicate my true meaning to them. Also, in the case of learning, I liked the direction that Biesta went in. Biesta went to what is learning, when does it start, and what is the “learning age”. All of these questions really make you think about what learning really means. It made me think of Justin during lectures in saying he doesn’t know what learning means or is. I’ve never really looked at that. I’ve always just thought “Oh the teacher is teaching, the students are learning.” But is that really true? Does learning mean something different for every person out there? Also, how does a person actually learn? Is it through experiences, being lectured, or doing homework assignments? How do you teach and how does someone learn from your teaching?

I want to take all of these questions and find a teaching approach to help my students find how they learn and what they learn, in whatever learning means to them. I know I will have certain state requirements to fulfill but I want my students to be able to understand what is that I am teaching to them. I want to understand what my students need from me to better enhance their “learning” environment.

I have no clue if I interpreted Biesta right or if I really did understand what he was conveying to me. I do know that it was an interesting book to read and to experience.

Beauty and Risk

Education has risks to it, just like everything else in life. There will always be risks in what you do. Education may be full of risks but at the same time I think it is also full of inspiration and accomplishments. The students that I can reach during my career in education, however few they may be, will make the risks of education worth it. I think the positives of education can come to outweigh or at least balance the risks of education. From reading Biesta, the risk in education will always be there because it involves human interaction. There will always be risk in education, otherwise according to Biesta (2013) “there is a real chance that we take out education altogether” (p. 1). I think there are many different risks in education. There is the risk of not having enough subjectivity between the teachers and students (subjectivity in the meaning of Biesta). There is the risk of not having actual communication and not being able to then connect with the students to be able to help them in their educational careers. There is the risk of causing unintentional harm to the students, like Phyllis told Edwin. Education is a beautiful risk to me because although I may face those challenges, I will be able to hopefully connect with at least one of my students in a positive way. That is the beauty of all the risks. There is always something wonderful that can come from all the risks. To me, a risk is anything that can be seen as something that may get in the way of a child’s performance. We try to eliminate the difficulties of human interactions in order to eliminate communication errors but I don’t think we can ever truly get rid of this type of risk in education. I think that is the meaning of beautiful. The risks are something that is naturally there. They can’t be removed without getting rid of education as a whole. There are risks all through life that we have to work our way through. We can’t just eliminate all the risks and make things perfect. The risks in life are what make life worth living, just like the risks in education make it worth going into an education career. Seeing those who do go into education, even though there are the risks, is beauty in itself.

The Liberationist....

A teacher who uses the liberationist approach is almost a mix between the executive approach and the facilitator approach.  To me, it collects certain aspects from both of the other approaches. It focuses on the knowledge of the students, like an executive would. Then, it also focuses on helping the students grow as better human beings, like a facilitator would. It has some of the same concepts going on but the liberationist approach is quite different from the executive and facilitator approaches. Liberationist teachers see knowledge in a completely different light than executive teachers do. They see the ends as something different that facilitator teachers do.

For me, personally, I think it would be somewhat hard to use a liberationist approach to teaching. I feel that it doesn’t have the right type of structure to it to help in learning mathematics or chemistry. I am talking about using a pure liberationist approach though. I wouldn’t mind doing hands-on projects in either of my subjects and connecting them to different things in the world. I could easily connect math to every day issues. Chemistry would be able to be connected to food and beverages we eat and drink every day. The relations to life are what help the students to see why they are learning topics and going to school at all. At the same time though, I think more executive aspects will appear in my classroom. I do like the points about mannerisms of being a liberationist teacher. I think it almost applies to teaching in general though. If you don’t have the ability to have the right mannerisms, you won’t be able to connect with the students in the way that they need in order to learn. I think it is important for teachers and students to find that connection or relationship to help aid in the reinforcement of wanting and needing to learn and the ability to learn.

The Facilitator...

A facilitator teacher use what the students know and can bring to the table and helps the students build their own knowledge. The facilitator helps students find themselves and develop not only in school knowledge but also as human beings. They try to be aware of who their students are, what the students’ experiences are, and what type of interests their students have. The facilitator uses this knowledge to better design assignments for the class. It will also help the teacher to build relationships with the students and learn how to better interact with the students as individuals. A facilitator teacher focuses less on the Knowledge part and more on the Ends part of the MAKER program. Their Ends is more for the development of the students as finding who they are and as human beings rather than the schooling aspect of thing.

I think that a facilitator teacher’s classroom would have a more relaxed flow to it. Desks are always in rows and columns in most classrooms, especially in an executive classroom. I think that in a facilitator classroom the desks would not be quite as organized. They might be broken up into groups or set in a circle type shape. I think this would help the students to open their experiences and prior knowledge to the class a little better.

I think that the facilitative approach to teaching would be difficult because although you want to help the students learn to be unique people they also need to learn about the topics of what subject you are teaching. I especially think it would be hard to use a pure facilitator approach in a math or chemistry classroom. They are subjects that are almost as building blocks from one year to the next so it would be hard to stray into unstructured lesson plans and objectives.