Philosophies and stuff(Sociology)! – Storm Kreutzer

In between stuffing my face full of bites of turkey, I delved into the philosophical readings we had for this week. Utterly distracted by my poultry prey, it took me a while to fully comprehend the ideas that it tried to get across, but I came away with some neat facts that I learned.

In learning about the major philosophical systems, I think the one that I loved the wording of the most was pragmatism. “Truth is what works”. In reality, that approach to life is very as-it-stands, and, as the text puts it, rather consequentialist. The idea that the result of actions is how you detemine right from wrong, and truth from falsehood.

Another thing I learned is that, no matter how I seem to try, when it comes to picking-and-choosing aspects of philosophical systems, political systems, education systems, whatever the case: I seem to be incapable of doing anything but remaining “On-the-fence”. I can see both positives and negatives in a lot of these systems. For example:

Conservatism                                                         Progressivism

Pro – Easier to teach, is very cut-and-dry.             Focuses entirely on the student.

Con – Very little adaptability.                         As the text states: “They must know their                                                                                         students well”, referring to the teacher.

 

At first, I was a bit skeptical over why Sociology was a chosen reading – at first, I assumed it was merely knowing where we came from, in order to forge onwards better. And, well, it is, but it’s also so much more. In understanding where we come from, we not only understand our (and humanity’s) past mistakes, but we begin to consider how those mistakes impact our students, which is imperative when we’re considering both how to teach, and how to react.

 

This reading reignited a bit of an old flame, as the instant I saw a reference to Plato’s Allegory of the Cave, I was drawn back to high school, first learning about that. For whatever reason, it fascinated me at the time, and I believe that I’ll be looking into that in the future, just to research it more.

In regards to educational systems developing over time, I love the irony with hiring young, “underqualified” individuals, often women, as the text puts it. While not much was expected of these women, they performed astoundingly,  which allowed schooling to move a big step closer to how it is today. This has interested me, primarily in the manner that I wish to look at the sociology of education in other countries. I believe I could learn more that way.

 

I think the question that I have after this is the question proposed by the philosophical text itself. To summarize:

“How should I take the philosophical systems, pick and choose which parts of them I want in my teaching, and how should I implement that?”

I believe that’s something that’ll prove worth it to answer.

First Volunteer Experience…Kinda? Storm Kreutzer

So. I bet you’re reading this thinking of how I’m gonna tell you all about how being a puppeteer is wonderful and great and how I love it so much.

And you’re half right.

See, I haven’t yet gone out to a school for a show. The organization in question, KOTB (Kids on the Block) Regina wanted myself and Anthea to have some experience with handling the puppets and handling the scripts first. So that’s what has generally been going on.

However! There still have been experiences worth talking about. I have had 3 practice sessions thus far, and they’re honestly quite fun. I enjoy manipulating the puppet and utterly embarrassing myself in front of experienced people (feeling harsh judgement the entire time), so it’s honestly been a good experience thus far.

Seriously though, everyone that is there to help us learn how to use the puppets is so helpful and patient. The puppets themselves are interesting creatures: apparently they go for quite a large sum of money to purchase brand-new. At first I was quite apprehensive towards using them, due to the fact that as a college student, a large, unexpected fee is not something I’m exactly keen on paying. However, they’ve all been built to take a beating, so they’ve served well thus far.

Being slow to memorize, I’ve not been too successful at committing the scripts to memory, though I’m hoping that will change soon, as my first show at a school is this coming Thursday. Admittedly it would have been smarter to write this post then, but the point is kind of moot, as I am currently breaking the fourth wall in a blog post telling you about how it would have been smarter to write this blog post at a later date.

But in all seriousness, I have enjoyed the experience thus far, and I expect to be able to say the same and more after my first placement. Have a good day, thanks for reading o7.

 

Development and Cognitive Views: Stuff and Things! -Storm Kreutzer

So! On the readings this week, we’ve been assigned to read all about development of children, through self, social, and moral ways. In addition, how do cognitive views and keeping attention relate to that? Well, that’s what I’m here to explore. And by explore, I mean read.

I think that the first thing that I learned was how rampant eating disorders were for adolescents. According to the text, close to 1% of adolescents become anorexic, which to me makes me think of the following:

If I have a class of 33 students every year, meaning that every 3 years, I’d have a student who was anorexic, which drives home the point that I need to be aware of this, and be able to properly deal with it. It really brings emphasis that you need to be seizing every opportunity where it’s appropriate to talk about health.

The second thing I learned was how much attention a teacher has to pay to the way they present their academic challenges. As an example, you have to properly balance caring for students with having high expectations of them, but you can’t allow yourself to sway to either side. You effectively have to walk a tightrope with teaching, because swaying to either side makes it drastically more difficult to come back to a balance without overshooting to the other side.

Swaying to either side can either leave students with impossible challenges, or with no real challenges whatsoever, neither of which is helpful to the students.

A question I had before this was “How are we supposed to command attention?”, and I had this question because I know personally how difficult it can be to sit still and only pay attention to the person in front of you for a while. After all, I’m a university student, and while that activity isn’t something we can avoid, it never really gets easier. So how do we get students to do it?

The third thing I learned was that commanding attention in a classroom really isn’t as complex as I made it out to be in my head. A couple examples the book gives are:

Don’t give directions during transitional movements. Only give clear and concise directions while standing still. This commands more attention than anotherwise.

 

Coincidentally, that’s also the thing I’m going to be looking into with other sources as well: methods for commanding more attention passively. I believe that using as many sources as I am able would help my development as a teacher, and would also help my student’s development as well. Therefore, even though the resources I have are very well-written, I’ll also look for some alternate opinions, and then try to mix and match my own.

Honestly, one of the most personal issues that this book talks about to me is the idea of self-confidence. Self-concept is, as per the book, “Part of our everyday conversation”. I take this to heart, because everything we say and do is effectively on a pedestal for everyone to see. Learning to accept that is part of growing up, but the way by which we accept that varies. I’d like to learn how to teach acceptance of that in a healthy way.

I think a question that still remains in my mind would be:

How do we deal with our own failure, while still remaining vigilant for others?

I know I’m gonna mess up at some point, and I know everyone is, because that’s part of being a teacher. I think what I’d like is an in-depth way or method of dealing with our own failures as teachers, when they stare us in the face every day.

I guess that’s something that’ll come with experience. Ah well.

 

Am test post yes

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