Modern Day Considerations

I’ve decided to challenge myself a bit when it comes to literary analyses. Part of my education to be an educator required that I choose a concentration area. As much as I wanted to fill the great need for math and science teachers, humanities has always been my passion and strong suit, so I chose English as my concentration.
I do love my reading and writing, probably in a different way than many others. I have long time been a big fan of the non-fiction genre, as my desire to learn overpowers my desire to escape into a good novel, although I also enjoy the latter. As a result of my obsession with non-fiction reading (and believe me, it goes way, way back- to childhood really) I am not well read in the fiction genre, and less well read in many of the classic junior novels that will likely be part of the curriculum I will someday teach.
I decided that in order to familiarize myself with popular junior novels, despite my lack of time for recreational reading, I will start getting books on CD from my local library and listening to them when I am in the car. While listening to them, I can begin to think about questions I might use in discussions with my students, if I were to teach this book.
I started this yesterday with “The Giver” by Lois Lowry. I am only a few chapters in but I already have some great ideas of critical thinking questions that I might pose to my class. But one thing I didn’t expect was to have all kinds of thoughts regarding the actual experience of listening to audio books as opposed to the experience of reading them. Back when I was in school, cliff notes were the only cheater we had to reduce the work of actually reading a book (now I relish in the thought of reading for homework!) But in this day and age, there are so many new ways for children to access information that I feel it necessary to ask myself, “how would I handle this in my classroom- if children choose to listen to books instead of read them.” It also makes me wonder how teachers are already dealing with this situation.
I can see that there may be both positives and negatives attached to audio books.
The first positive that pops into my mind relates to accommodation for disabled students. If I get to choose a book to use for a lesson, it would be beneficial from an inclusion perspective to choose books which are readily available in audio format.
Another positive would be to utilize the audio format in collaboration with the text to help students integrate the material with both visual and auditory sensory input.
On the negative end, the experience of listening to the audio book tends to color the readers perspective of the characters, much the same as watching a film about a book does. The reader on the audio book adds his/her own voice to the characters and reads in such a way that the listener begins to model the character to match the readers voice, instead of using the tone, imagery and characteristics of each character to create an impression of their own.
Also on the negative end is the affect on technical details, such as becoming more fluent and learning new vocabulary and synthesizing the material, lack of retention and the ability to “space out” or get distracted when not focusing visually on the text.
In the age of technology, there are many other considerations to make when developing lessons and assignments in order to ensure students do not short change their education by using technology as a shortcut. Even reading has become techno-fied (yes, I made that word up).
On the other hand, for teachers, all this technology can be an incredible time saving method of staying fresh and current on the curricular material and obtaining new perspectives and ideas on how to approach discussions with students.

F.A.T. City

We watched The F.A.T. City Workshop in class last night. This wasn’t my first time viewing this film. I can’t even remember what course it was that I watched it in, maybe psychology or ethics, but what I do know is that it was back when I was a Business major and I remember finding it fascinating because of my interest in education (despite the awful '80's hair), but not taking it to heart the way I did last night.
Some of the key lessons from the film that I want to take away for the future, whether or not the child is LD, are:
1. If a child is having difficulty answering a question, don’t push or embarrass them. Take the pressure off and move on to another question and maybe come back to them after they have had a moment to think about their answer. I don’t think that everything comes down to quantity. Sometimes quality is most important and in education quality should be most important, so taking a little extra time to allow a student to digest a question and think about his/her answer should be done.
2. Children who are having difficulty with class material will not be motivated by a prize. If I notice that the child is having problems, I just make a mental note and not put them on the spot. I can discuss it with him/her in private and help. Trying to get them to answer using material gain isn't helping.
3. The true definition of fair is that “every one gets what they need.” That’s just a good piece of info for anyone.
4. Use positive reinforcement- make a big deal about a right answer or a strong attempt rather than making a point of letting everyone know the child was wrong, which leads to…
5. Don’t purposely embarrass kids in front of their peers. Especially if LD is involved, pointing out their weaknesses is only going to cause them to shut out more and try less. As adults, we don't appreciate public humiliation, why should we think a child is any different.

I think a lot of these points are already behaviors that teachers are taught to avoid, alot has changed in education since then. I think back when the film was made, this type of treatment was far more common than now, but considering that part of my education was recieved back then, its still a good idea for me to consciously make the attempt to not revert to these behaviors which may be part of my psychological conditioning from my own childhood.