Pygmalion From The Start

If you are semi-read, or work in the education field, you have probably heard of the Pygmalion Effect, or the Self-Fulfilling Prophecy. If you have not, it is basically what the latter title suggests. If I assume my students will not get a concept, chances are pretty good that they will recognize this doubt in my teaching the lesson, and in turn, they will not get the concept. I expected them not to, so why should they try?

Recently I found out my student teaching placements; both are near-by districts, and both are urban settings. This is good. I want to get a job in The City come next fall, and this as close as it gets. The first district is more local than the other, and some of the individuals I work with at my job beeping groceries have graduated from that district. We have discussed my student teaching briefly, and some customers have heard where I was going. Most customers have a comment, and they all lie along the same idea - I will need help. I have received comments like "God bless you" or "Good luck with that one. You're going to need it." No one has offered me a positive response like "Oh, that will be a good experience."

It also goes beyond the customers in the local area. In talking to individuals who have never set foot in this district, or even the town, I have heard them begin to demean the students and the district. Where does this bias come from? Is it because it is an urban district? Is it that it is a seemingly troubled city? Why this unfounded bias?

I am not suggesting that these kids are angels, nor am I suggesting that they are devils, but this is the only response I receive from customers - from the public. Perhaps maybe this has something to do with the possible negative attitudes of students in these schools? Maybe a fight breaks out once upon a time, and suddenly there is talk with in the community at how the school is going down hill, and it's expected that more fights, and more issues come to light, and it happens.

Maybe I am giving the district too much credit without actually stepping foot in the building, but regardless, we must remember that when we have low expectations, and it becomes publicly known that our expectations are low, the results will be low.

Last Class

Today marked the last class of the class for whom I was TA'ing, and the source of stories found in this blog. Do not fear, for next semester I will be student teaching, and continuing work on my Graduate Assistantship, so undoubtedly I will have more to share.

Anyway, today's class was spent going over the final exam students will be writing a week from today, and I led the discussion. For the final, students are required to use two texts, one an article from Harper's that I mentioned earlier, and the other being an outside source which the students have found perusing the New York Times, or one of the texts assigned through out the year. Students will begin by summarizing one of the arguments presented by Crister (Harper's), and then proceed to have a conversation between the two pieces and their own opinions. It was my task today to help students get a grasp on the Crister article.

The article was a bit lengthy, and Crister presented a few different arguments, all of course supporting his main idea. I began by asking students to offer up what they deemed his major argument to be, and as it was more-or-less spelled out for them in the sub-title, they nailed it pretty good. We then moved on to discuss his other arguments. Most students seemed occupied with viewing the article through an animal rights lens, and so I attempted to gear the discussion in that manner.

In the end it seemed students understood what was going on in the article, and I was allowed to present a diagram of ethics that I stole from Roderick Frazier's The Rights of Nature. Undoubtedly, ethics professors would probably find fault or dispute the diagram, but none-the-less I find it to be an interesting one that makes students think about their world and - in the end - hopefully make them better humans. A lofty task no doubt, but I truly feel the diagram helps.

The diagram, as you may be able to see from my notes, looks almost like a cross sectional view of a tree that is ever expanding through time. At the center of the circle is the Magna Carta which limited the powers of the King. As time progressed, these powers became more limited, and rights became more distributed through the populace; gradually moving down through the classes. I forget the details between the Magna Carta (1215), and the Bill of Rights (1791). As society progressed, rights were given out further to include African-Americans, women, people of color, and it is here that the diagram was applied to animals. The outer circles began to include animals, mainly mammals, those that are larger in size and are somewhat resemblant of human kind. We then progress to include all mammals, and then to the other Animal Kingdoms, and so on until possibly one day we include the entire Universe as having basic rights of existence not to be impeded upon by human behaviour. These circles concerning non-humans are dotted as there is still progress to be made, but the ideas exist, and there are actions towards giving rights to these bodies - PETA, ALF. There is really no knowing how far or in depth these rights may expand. Currently our scientific paradigms tell us animals do not think or communicate in such a way as to place them on level with human kind, but as paradigms are constantly changing - after all it was not so long ago that the bumps on your head told of your intelligence - we cannot say just how far these rights will one day extend.

As a side. If you note in my diagram I had wrote "Black Men" then scribbled out "Black" and wrote "A.A." This was not a slip of the racist sort, for at the time when Black people gained rights it was mostly in recognition of African American men. However, according to my most recent knowledge, using the term "African American" to describe Black people is racist as it assumes that all Black people are from Africa.

A Brief Overview

Through out the class we will be using basically two texts and one style guide. The first text is an anthology put together by Diane Durkin and Lisa Gerrard called Seeking Common Cause: Reading and Writing in Action. Now I don't actually own this book as I use copies of the texts to be read provided for me. The second text that we are using is the New York Times. As I am not a student of the class, I don't have to buy this, but it is provided for me which is really quite nice in the grand scheme of things.

The class is broken into three units - the first of which was completed on October first with the submission of the students first "long" paper of six pages. In this unit the students looked at the image of self in regards to the popular media. We looked at images in the New York Times and advertisements in magazines such as People, US Weekly, and others of that sort. We also read pieces that were concerned with plastic surgery and body image. While still in this unit we took a trip to a local art gallery to view artwork that was concerned with women in suburbia. Students also used these images to frame their final paper for the unit.

With the closure of the unit we have moved to the image of self in the work place. We are looking at different jobs and perhaps sexism, or racism in the workplace as the class is all females with a handful of non-white students. We have not really delved into this unit too far yet as the first class and a half was spent watching a documentary on Wal-Mart and how awful the corporation really is. Then Columbus Day struck and we missed class. We began by reading a piece by Mike Rose and students are looking at different types of jobs, and what they mean to the individual.

In the most recent class, students were asked to create a collage based on the themes we have been discussing and their personal feelings. Some students took pictures from magazines, while others took titles or words from the New York Times. Students were then asked to write a response paper for next class, explaining individual pieces of their collages and the overall grand view of them.

Now that I'm caught up - to a degree - I can keep this thing updated when I get back from class.

Catch Up

So it goes like this:

I graduated from St. Lawrence University in 2005. I was pretty sure I wanted to teach, but was one of those college seniors that failed to think about graduate school and a job until spring break -- too late to apply for much. Scared and lost I decided to apply for a job teaching English in South Korea. A month after getting my oh-so-precious piece of paper, I was half-way across the globe trying to teach kindergartners how to speak proper English. Luckily, I had taken some undergraduate education classes so I wasn't completely lost. I had to return to the States pre-maturely -- for a reason I can tell only if you ask -- and decided that teaching was in fact what I wanted to do for sometime of my life, perhaps all. I applied and enrolled in an MAT program at a small private college where I now reside in a leaky apartment.

One of the classes I'm currently taking requires that we keep a blog of our expierences in the classroom. For most people this would be their expierences while completing the state mandated one-hundred hours of observation time, or their internships at local schools. Unfortunately, or fortunately, I completed my observation hours while bumbling through my under-graduate work and won't be embarking on my student teaching until the Spring semester, long after this assignment is due.

I was told that I could update this blog with responses to the assigned reading, and figured this would be what I was doing. Then I realized, I am in a classroom. Earlier this summer I was approached by a professor and encouraged to apply for a graduate assistantship. I did so and am currently a teachers assistant for an English 101 class - hence this wonderfully creative title. No doubt there will be differences between a high school class, and a college class, but the intellectual level that the students are on should be about the same as it is doubtful that the summer between your senior year of high school and freshman year of college is that transforming.