Reaction:
In chapter 6, Frank tells us a spur of the moment lesson having to do with excuse notes. When a child brings him a note that the student clearly wrote himself, Frank turns this into a real life lesson for his class.
This chapter of Teacher Man was probably my favorite. I see a lot of my own teaching abilities in Frank. I think a person, teacher or otherwise, should never stop learning. That learning can come from so many different sources. It could even come from your students.
I am the director of
Don’t be afraid to take some risks. I know that we as rookies in the field would rather get tenure and then stick our necks out. However, we are taking a risk trying a career we have never done, teaching materials we just learned, and talking to students we don’t know. What one more risk? Go with what you think is right.
Discussion:
Frank McCourt decides to sue an unusual lesson in his class one day. What are your feelings on his choice? Does his lesson have real world value? What kind of real world lessons can you bring to your classroom using your subject?
2 comments:
I think that the lesson Frank McCourt conveys to the students in Chapter 6 is absolutely brilliant. By the students handing in fake excuse notes for missing class and class work, they actually created more work for themselves. As far as real world value, I believe that the lesson he uses has a great deal of it. People are bound to make up excuses at some point in their life for why they didn't do what they were supposed to. I got the impression that McCourt didn't condone excuses or excuse notes, but figured if they were going to make them up they were darn well going to write them well.
Frank McCourt decides to pursue an unusual lesson in his class one day. What are your feelings on his choice? Does his lesson have real world value? What kind of real world lessons can you bring to your classroom using your subject?
Like you, I really liked McCourt’s innovative and non-traditional lesson. He was able to convince his students to write creatively without having to “pull teeth”. So I think it really worked. I also think his lesson had real world value. Teachers, I feel, oftentimes don’t spend enough time teaching their students “real” skills. For example, I would have liked to learn how to pay taxes, how to register to vote, how to apply to college, etc. These are tasks that I had to tackle on my own, and I might have felt a little less stressed about it if someone had walked me through the process ahead of time. As far as my own future classroom goes, I would like to include real world lessons. For example, my unit plan for this class was on US citizenship. In that unit, I was teaching students their rights as US citizens, how they can register to vote, how they can write letters to their congressman, etc. I was trying to teach them real world lessons that would benefit them in their everyday lives. Like you, Todd, I would also like to teach my students the things that are important to them. For example, if my students want to learn American slang, I think it’s fair to teach it to them (as long as it’s not vulgar).
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