Classroom Observation

Well the first thing that I want to talk about is the fact that I could never be a Jr. High School teacher. Even the thought of having to teach these kids scares me, and not many things scare me very much. This one does. It takes an unnatural amount of patience to deal with all of the classroom issues, and do it well. I fear for the lives of the children… Aside from that I thought it was very helpful. I kept a close eye on Reilly once I saw how difficult the kids were being. He held himself very well and didn’t let anything upset him. He took it all in stride, and was great to the kids. The funniest thing is that it’s probably a tame classroom and I’m just not used to that sort of chaos anymore. Anyway, back to what I learned:

One of the things I thought Reilly was really good at was bringing an energy to the classroom that grabbed the student’s attention, but he didn’t let it get out of hand. He started out with a question on the board and gave the students a few minutes at the start of class to think about it and write down their answer. The question was,  “What would you ask your hero if he/she was accused of cheating?” I participated in the activity and wrote down my answer. Then, using a few video clips, he showed the class what happened with Lance Armstrong. They were all shocked at the scandal, and he used his interview with Oprah to demonstrate the use of Yes/No questions vs open ended questions. It was pretty great actually. It kept the kids involved and interested, and as long as the video was working they were all pretty quiet. One of the things that I also thought was pretty great was that after thanksgiving break they would be choosing a topic of their choice to research and basically do what we did. Since it’s an English class, it’ll be in the form of an argument paper, but nonetheless it’s quite similar. I just hope they do something that’s a little more media related so that our lesson is applicable, helpful, and gives them some ideas of what they can do.

As Mack, Sammi, and I drove home we all brainstormed on how we can teach this class in the best way possible using Mack’s topic. We figure a bunch of Jr. High kids wouldn’t be all that stoked on the topics of feminism or corporate corruption. We could probably make it more interesting based on our approach, but we figure every kid loves movies, and using the movies they’ve seen to show them how the antagonist of a film is treated will instantly grab their attention. A few ideas we came up were the following:

·      Ask them what their favorite movies are and have them write them on the board.

·      Ask them what happens to the antagonist of those films.

·      Ask if they think the antagonist deserved what he got.

·      Ask if that’s how they treat people that offend them.

·      Ask them how the endings could be changed to make it nicer to the “bad guy.”

I’m pretty excited about teaching. There are multiple things that I’m nervous about, but I think ultimately it will be pretty great!

Education

“Oppression – overwhelming control – is necrophiliac; it is nourished by love of death, not life. The banking concept of education, which serves the interests of oppression, is also necrophiliac. Based on a mechanistic, static, naturalistic, spatialized view of consciousness, it transforms students into receiving objects. It attempts to control thinking and action, leads women and men to adjust to the world, and inhibits their creative power.”

As a student reading this particular essay it really stuck a chord. When I was younger I struggled in school. I hated sitting forever listening to what the teacher deemed “important.” I never acted out or caused any serious problems. But I would constantly wonder why we were learning what we were learning and why not something else. I think that may have come from a frustration I had with one of my seventh grade teachers. She was a nice lady, but it was the first time I realized that I not all teachers are wells of information and genius. It was a miracle she was teaching at all to be honest. There would be multiple times where she would have no clue what she was teaching and would simply have us read from the book and help each other. Then when we would ask her to explain it she would say, “I don’t know much about this part of the subject.” That was a great way to instill confidence in the classroom! The perception in society, as it’s studied in this chapter, of how teachers are placed in the realm of perfection makes sense to me, but is also the worst. Don’t get me wrong. 70 percent of all my teachers have been fine, and 20 percent of them amazing. I respect what teachers do with the upmost regard. And their job is extremely difficult. The way I see it is unfair. The classroom is a place where people go to learn. The teacher is meant to lead the discussion, but should also be willing to learn should a student bring something new to the conversation. My favorite professors and teachers have been the ones that lead a discussion rather than lecture us. Yes the discussions need to have a purpose and at least a type of agenda, but when the teacher is genuinely interested in the student’s understanding he or she will make a concentrated and solid effort to ensure that happens.

That may have felt like a little bit of a rant, but it’s something that’s important to me, and this article struck a chord with me. Although I may not agree with all of their points there were some great ones. This quotation beneath is something I agree with whole heartedly.            

“Education as the practice of freedom – as opposed to education as the practice of domination – denies that man is abstract, isolated, independent, and unattached to the world.”

Education is empowerment, and if someone is using it to oppress in anyway that’s something that can and should change. It just takes a little more effort from everybody involved.

“That’s all I have to say about that.”

Story for Change

Cast your minds back to when we all pitched our Big Ideas. I had originally thought to do a short story based off of the already existing text of Fievel Goes West. Well that didn't happen. It became more of an original idea rather than a remix. So I decided to abandon that and take a different approach. I decided to make a short video compilation of popular movies that deal with some type of corruption. It is based roughly on the idea that the fight against corruption starts with "you" and that's where the change needs to happen. I believe that a return to social, corporate, and political integrity is desperately needed. Though this may never happen, at least we can fight for it, and do our part.

I'll be honest. This project was a challenge. I didn't have much time to work on it, so I made the time. Though it's not perfect and may get a little confusing near the middle I do feel like I gave it my best shot, and I really respect those that do remixes well. I begin the video with a title card asking the audience to allow Rafiki from The Lion King to be their guide. I took a lot of his dialogue from the movie and used it as a compass to navigate the audience through the piece. It looks at Corruption as a whole for the first little bit and then asks you to look in the mirror. I used the clip of Simba staring at himself in the pond and juxtaposed it with a bunch of corrupt figures in popular movies that hopefully gives the audience that there is a desire in all of us to get ahead using any means possible. The ending is designed however to give the audience hope and tell them that it can be stopped as long as they are willing to fight for it. I really hope that it's not super confusing. It's pretty tricky telling a story/give a speech through video clips turns out.

One of the things that I feel like I accomplished with my story for change is simply raising awareness. I am not sure if the audience will find anything else of worth, but at the very least I made it known that I think corruption is an issue worth addressing, and I can't help but wonder what Adorno and Horkheimer would think of it. It's sort of paradoxical that I'm using the very product of the man (according to Adorno and Horkheimer), and using it against him. But I'm sure they would be able to find a way to argue that my Story for Change is only perpetuating their ideals and social subjugation to the ones with the money.

The middle section of the video is where it feels like it loses itself, but that is intentional. It was designed to be jarring, make you take a look at what is happening. The reason behind that is to help the audience see the corruption inside of them and fight it. Some of it is really over the top, some of it isn't so much. It gives you the sense that you're losing control, but once it reels itself back it you realize what it was all about. It gives it grounding and a stronger foundation even if we aren't quite sure what is going on at the moment. At least that's my hope, maybe it will just feel like a jumbled mess. That wouldn't be such a great thing.

As I compiled these clips trying to create meaning I had kind of a cool experience. I came to a deeper understanding of how much this topic really means to me. It didn't feel like I was creating the Story for Change to get a grade, but to really make a difference. I'm almost tempted to continue perfecting my video so it's more influential, poignant, inspiring, and makes a change. The more I created, the more it meant to me, and I hope the viewer has the same kind of an experience as I did in the making of it. I'm positive it won't be the same however, because when you create something of this sort I'm almost positive it will mean more to the creator than to anyone else. Take God for example, we are his creations and we mean more to him than anything else. As a child when you built something it meant more to you than anybody else (except maybe your mother). That's one of the downsides to such a project. But that's also what gives me the desire to make it all the better so that the audience has an experience that was just as meaningful as mine.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y914bu9GL6g&feature=youtu.be