Students' Perspective

Today in my ED 101 class, there was a panel made up of five kids from various school sites around the city.  Two of them were in middle school and three were in high school.  The first hour of class, my professor asked questions which the students took turns answering.  The last half hour was opened up to our questions.  Though I found some of my professor's questions and the students' answers useful, I think it would have been more helpful if the whole time had been spent working through our questions, since those were the ones whose answers I found most helpful.  Here are some interesting points gathered at the panel:

Grading/Homework - it helps to have homework worth a bigger percentage of the final grade, since test and quiz grades might not necessarily demonstrate student effort.  This thinking kind of goes along with what I did last year; homework counted for about a third of the grade, and it only mattered whether the student completed the assignment or not.  The students also mentioned that it's helpful for homework to be useful and for the students to really be able to see the connection between the assignment and what they're working on in class. In short, busy work is useless.

Expectations - It's *very* important to have clear, understandable expectations for each and every assignment.  If not, make sure that students understand why they got the grade they did.  It's important that kids understand what they're being graded on before they get an assignment.

General Advice - Be outgoing!  Don't be hesitant, just go for it!  Make sure you're energetic.  Confidence is a big thing.  Look like you know what you're talking about so that students take you seriously (don't become "fodder for teenagers").  Relate to students and pay attention to them.  Most importantly, try your best!

So, interesting things to think about!  And tomorrow, I'll be shadowing a student for my "Experiencing a Student's Day" paper, so THAT should be pretty interesting, too!

ciao

Thoughts

I may or may not be trying to revive this little space here. I like the idea of a blog and of blogging quite a bit, but keeping it up is sometimes so difficult, especially when I'm not even sure of readership. But I guess that part shouldn't really matter, and I should just be doing this for me. So many interesting things are happening to me, I feel like I should preserve them somehow, in a medium that is more lasting than pen and paper. We'll see...

ciao

In which I post interesting videos I've watched recently

All having to do with Education, of course...

Changing Paradigms

A Call to Reinvent Liberal Arts Education

ciao

Just Keep Swimming

I have been repeating this phrase to myself quite a bit this week, meaning it in both the literal and figurative sense. I'll explain the literal first since it's rather easier to explain.

So, this week was my first week as a member of the Cambridge Masters Swim Club (CMSC). I'd been really missing swimming on a real team and didn't really have the opportunity to do so in the suburbs. Now that I live in Somerville, however, I have easy access to the city's many Masters clubs. I chose CMSC because they practice at Harvard University, and it's fairly easy for me to get there from Tufts and from my apartment. So, on Tuesday, I went to my first practice. It was pretty brutal. My body was definitely telling me that I hadn't been in the water seriously in two years. Despite the pain, I had a great time. I joined with a friend of mine, and we both already knew someone on the team, so it wasn't too difficult to meet people. And the feeling of working hard alongside other people is just so great! I'd really missed that. And I felt like I was getting better yesterday, so that was heartening. I just have to keep swimming!

So, figuratively. I started class at Tufts this week. Originally, I was signed up to take a Latin class and an intro psych class (which is a requirement for the degree). They were both on Tuesdays and Thursdays, the Latin class at 9am and the psych class at 1pm. So on Tuesday, I headed over to the Classics department, ready for class. It was totally empty, so I went online to double check the location of the class. Of course, it had been changed at the last second. I found out where the class was now located and ran over to that building. The classroom, however, was full of kids taking some art and architecture class. Panicking now at 9:05, I ran back to the Classics department, only to find it still empty. I had absolutely no idea what to do, so I just went back to the building the class was supposed to be in. Very luckily, I saw the professor wandering around looking as lost I was. We chatted for a while about the people who had commandeered our room then she said, "Well, it doesn't really matter anyway, because there are only two people registered for this class and I need six to run the class. And you're the only one here anyway. So I guess the class is canceled." She handed me what would have been the syllabus and headed back to her office, leaving me totally dumbstruck.

I then entered another state of panic. I'd been counting on taking this Latin class, actually had been looking forward to it. I had no idea if I needed to take two classes this summer or not and wasn't sure I could get into any other classes if I wanted to anyway. And the other classes that I was interested in were all in the evening, which I very expressly did NOT want to do during my first session of class. I was feeling super frustrated and sent off a few very panicked e-mails to me advisors. Resigned to not getting an answer anytime soon, I went home to have lunch before returning for my afternoon psych class.

I'm not sure which was worse - having my Latin class canceled in the morning, or that first psych class that afternoon. It was so boring I'm surprised I made it thought the whole three and a half hours without falling asleep. I could barely understand what the professor was talking about and to top it all off, I was freezing in the over-air conditioned room. Needless to say, I was definitely repeating "Just keep swimming!"to myself quite a bit that evening.

I'm happy to say that things have mostly worked out. My Latin class was officially canceled, but I don't have to take two classes this summer. The second psych class yesterday was much better - I actually paid attention the whole time! Hopefully the rest of the summer continues to go smoothly.

Here's to sticking out tough weeks, and to that I-haven't-worked-out-in-forever soreness that hurts oh so good.

ciao

Intention

Last night I saw Woody Allen's new film, Midnight in Paris. I really liked it, though it made me want to go to Paris so badly. The plot is rather like science-fiction: Gil, who daydreams about the "Golden Age" of Paris in the '20's, finds himself magically transplanted there during a midnight stroll. He meets all the famous writers and artists who called Paris home at that time: Hemmingway, the Fitzgeralds, Picasso, etc. He spends a few nights amongst them, unable to believe he is actually living in an era he had so often dreamed about. The catch comes at the end, when his 1920s love interest sighs that she wished she had been born at the turn of the century, in "La Belle Epoque." When Gil tries to tell her that she is living in that age, that the '20s are the true Beautiful Age, she repeats, almost verbatim, the same complaints Gil himself had about the 2000s.

The moral of the story of obviously to be happy in the life you have, not waste energy dreaming about something impossible. It was a bit cliche, but it made an impression on me. Sometimes I find it really difficult to focus on the present moment; I'm too busy reliving highlights from the past or frantically trying to imagine what life will be like in the future. I've been doing this lately especially now that The Boyfriend is in Italy - it's been hard for me to focus on the present because I've been so lonely.

Well, the film has inspired me. I am going to try to be much more intentional about my daily life, and not just go through the motions, especially now that The Boyfriend is gone. We've lived together for about a year now, and I was so sad and lonely when he left last week, but I've realized now that it's good for me to have some time for just me, time to figure out again who I am outside of our relationship, just on my own. I'm not sure how I'll do this exactly, but it's certainly something worth thinking about each day, especially if I'm considering just sitting in front of the T.V. for the rest of the night. It reminds me of a speech one of the seniors at The Academy gave last year. He said that he hated feeling like he wasn't being productive. He never just sat around watching T.V. because he always felt like there was something better to be doing. And that, in a nutshell, is what I'm pursuing, I suppose: meaningful productivity.

On the more mundane side of things (or not, given what I just wrote above), tomorrow is a mini-orientation at Tufts for those students in the Dept of Education taking classes this summer. I'm very excited about it because it means I'll get to meet some people from my program - and hopefully expand my social agenda a bit, too. :)

Here's to living with intention and purpose!

ciao

A Successful Transplant

Well, world, we did it. The Boyfriend and I successfully moved all our crap from our apartment in the 'burbs of Boston into the city. Into Somerville, to be more specific, which, for all you non-Bostonians out there, is technically not Boston, but a separate city (but it is part of the Greater Boston Metropolitan Area). Whatever, it's all the same to me. And I love it. Our new apartment is spacious and full of light!! So much so that we were unable to sleep past 5am for the first few days because of the amount of sunlight streaming in through our blinds (and due to the total failure of our blinds). I guess living in a garden apartment makes you forget that there is, indeed, sun in the mornings.

Though we've had the apartment since June 1st, because of our trip to Ohio, this is the first full week we've been living here. We spent the first few days last week recovering from the road trip, and just when things are about to settle down, one of us has to jump up and leave again. That's right, the Boyfriend is leaving for Italy tomorrow, and will be gone on an archaeological dig there for six weeks. Boo hoo for me, but I guess with classes starting at Tufts on the 5th of July, I'll have other things to worry about other than being crushingly lonely. I also plan on doing quite a few fun things with some girlfriends, so hopefully I'll have plenty to post about. But that's about it for now, world. Have a lovely Wednesday!

ciao

Alma Mater

As I mentioned in my last post, I was in Oberlin earlier this week, staying with the magnificent CMF himself. Overall I had a good time - hanging out with CMF was especially fun- but there was a subtle strange feeling that permeate the days which we spent there. I had not been back to Oberlin since I graduate from that fine institution two years ago. I had refused to go, mostly because of financial issues, but also because I knew that it would be different from when I had been there; different people, different events, a different atmosphere. I didn't want to go back and feel disappointed that things were not exactly as I had left them. This trip, however, was a necessity; The Boyfriend had some work he had to do with a professor there and Oberlin made a good stopping point on our drive from Boston to Cincinnati, which was our ultimate destination. I thought that after two years, I would have grown up and out of Oberlin enough to handle the strangeness of going back to a place that was no longer mine.

I suppose I was wrong.

I had expected to get on campus and feel as if the college years had been yesterday. In reality, I couldn't remember the names of streets or buildings, or names of people. None of the major places or people from my tenure there, but things I had once known nonetheless. New buildings had been built and I couldn't remember what had been there before. The food - burgers and pancakes which we had raved about nostalgically in Boston - didn't taste as good as it had in our daydreams. All in all, it was strange and it made me sad.

The term "alma mater" means "nourishing mother" in Latin, and I think that it describes my college experience perfectly. Oberlin was like my mother; it provided me with the tools I needed to make a life for myself once I had outgrown it, its faculty and staff made me feel incredibly loved and appreciated. I loved my time there, but there definitely came a time for me to leave. And now, going back to visit is similar to going back to the house where I grew up: it was a part of me, but is now no longer mine. And that is exactly how I felt at Oberlin, like a visitor, a guest, in the house where I had grown up.

ciao