August 30, 2006

Pedagogy of Hope

When I was in Gambia I taught a bunch of people who were older and wiser than I am/was. Frequently, I discovered this the hard way. Helen was very gracious (thanks Helen:).

Tomorrow, I'm basically doing the same thing, only for a bunch of my peers. Why am I more concerned about this than I remember being in the past? Perhaps, then, I had this feeling that if I didn't get in the classroom and do something to relieve Helen, that she would literally work herself to death (a possibility that I'm sure that no one who knows her has ruled out. Grant? Are you listening?)

I even know this material a heck of a lot better than I knew the curriculum in Gambia. If you're wondering, this post still has nothing to do with a pedagogy of hope. I just wanted you to read my post and sympathize.

Thanks.

Posted by Mendon at August 30, 2006 4:35 PM
Comments

So- why do the students know more than you?

Posted by: Rae at August 30, 2006 8:49 PM

Wait, know more about what? About the subject matter? Hands down, I was/am an expert compared to the knowledge of the students in either case (not hard when comparing anything positive to zero). In the case of Gambia, people just had much more life experience and they generously shared their wisdom with me:)

Posted by: Mendon at August 30, 2006 9:10 PM

You have both my sympathy and my prayers.

Having been on the receiving end of more teaching, I would suggest that you are more aware now of the impact of a good/poor teacher than you were when you were in Gambia.

In truth, I have no real advice to offer. Other than in my Study Circle (Book 7) on Tuesday we came across the following quote from the Guardian,
"Stop being conscious of your frailties, therefore; have a perfect reliance upon God."
Which certainly summed up the best moments of my teaching experience.

Let us know how it goes.

Posted by: Helen at August 31, 2006 7:25 AM

Good and bad teaching experiences are had by teachers, not by students. They have good or bad learning experiences. So....you are in control, to a degree of how you think about the experience. Should you feel confident and prepared it will be just "fine". If you just guide people to discovery rather than lecture fun will be had by all. If you permit the students to respond and go places with the new stuff, even you will like it......just a few thoughts.....(not any of this is 'you need to' do sort of thing).

Posted by: papa at August 31, 2006 11:18 AM

It went well. I showed up and, like a nightmare, had forgotten to bring everything that's relevant that I had prepared for the day. Oh well. All went just fine. I only had four people (out of 90) show up. And they were all well prepared and knowledgable, anyway.

Posted by: Mendon at August 31, 2006 3:45 PM

4 out of 90?! Wow.

Posted by: Mara at August 31, 2006 11:02 PM

I suspect that more and more kids will begin showing up as the quizzes/math begins to get harder. Once sums of squares and the standard error of the mean starts showing up, kids will be there.

Posted by: Mendon at September 1, 2006 8:25 AM

I'm taking it that this was a stats class?

Posted by: Ma at September 1, 2006 12:04 PM