Week 2- Post #2 Response to Sue Calland

Response:
The situation Heather faced was something that one of my students faced this year in french class. They were asked to create a calendar using words that they learned in their cycle of French. He decided to use some of the extra words they had learned (as they spoke during class) and was docked points. His parents and I had to fight to get the student a better grade. In the end we got the grade changed but the teacher still did not see the problem with what he had done. This student is now terrified of not following the directions to the T, for fear of losing points. I feel like the stress of getting the A often takes the creativity out of work for the students.






Original Post:


"One Buttocks Player" and "I Give You An A"






First of all, Benjamin Zander is a wonderful speaker and extremely easy to listen to. I was a bit confused in the beginning of the video with what exactly a “One Buttock Player” was, but then I caught his point. You need to look at the whole, not at the individual parts.
Being a science teacher, I am constantly telling my kids to think outside the box.


One quote from the book that stuck with me was, “…even science relies on our capacity to adapt to new facts by radically shifting the theoretical constructions we previously accepted as truth.” Although I do completely agree that a world without measurement would be really nice and relaxing, I do not feel it is actually realistic. The author states, “You are more likely to be successful, overall, if you participate joyfully with projects and goals and do not think your life depends on achieving the mark because then you will be better able to connect to people all around you.” One point Zander makes is that if grades were not given, people would be more willing to take a risk. However, I feel that also needs to be understood by the instructor. My sophomore daughter decided to challenge herself on her Spanish assignment. She refused to take the easy way by using given phrases and really worked hard on her assignment, but made some mistakes with it and was docked points for doing so. If she had stuck with the easier phrases, she would have achieved all of the points for her grade. That instructor was teaching her to just do it the easy way and don’t challenge yourself because then you will get a better grade. In my classroom, when I ask a student a question that they do not know the answer or to think they don’t know, I tell them to just give it a try, the worst thing that can happen is they are wrong and if they haven’t been wrong yet today they should try being in my life! This usually relaxes them and they give it a try. They frequently surprise themselves with being right or having a new way to look at something.


As I continued to read through chapter 3 I realized that the authors were not strictly referring to a grade, but to a teacher’s encouragement of his/her students and the manner in which the classroom is run and allowing students to be contributors.


I just hope that I can rescue one starfish!