Wednesday, May 5, 2010

Harry Potter: Such a Good Read


I love love love reading other teachers' blogs! Especially those of the District because DCPS is just that entertaining. One of my favorite bloggers is Harry Potter and the Urban School Nightmare (see under Semester Reads. And Harry, please come back to blogging!). I always find myself laughing when I read his blogs. It just shows how witty students can be and I really look forward to that. Also, I love Harry Potter. I fear that I would be sorted into Hufflepuff though.

Although I have been going to school and working with students in Prince George's County for several years now, by no stretch of the imagination do I fully understand these kids and where they're coming from. I am making the effort though and I feel like I learn something new everyday. One of Harry Potter's posts, really got me thinking about the "bubble" that some urban students live in. While they are not in living in the usual sense of a "bubble" (protected and secluded away from dangerous society), they are definitely isolated from what other students get to experience. Take for example, Harry Potter's students who thought that the majority of the U.S. population is black (the actual percentage being around 12). Reading this post made me giggle, but it is certainly a somewhat serious topic. It reminded me of when I went to a DCTF diversity panel and one of the current Fellows discussed that many of her students had never seen more than their block, much less the monuments or museums of DC.

While I hope to help my students become successful in their current environment, I want them to be able to see everything that the world, their world, has to offer. I think everyone grows by seeing more.

Another blog of Harry's that I wanted to comment on was about Harlem Children's Zone. I had never heard of a Harlem Children's Zone until I was planning my school's Alternative Spring Break trip to West Virginia. President Obama had said that he wanted to replicate Harlem Children's Zones. I only understand the concept partially, but I wanted to comment on the quote from the post:

"These results are powerful evidence in a long-running debate. Some experts, mostly surrounding the education establishment, argue that schools alone can’t produce big changes. The problems are in society, and you have to work on broader issues like economic inequality. Reformers, on the other hand, have argued that school-based approaches can produce big results. The Harlem Children’s Zone results suggest the reformers are right."

I don't know if I'm a "reformer", but I do believe that schools (not alone) can produce big changes. As a student myself, I have spent over 17 years of my life in school. Despite the moments when I tried to resist its power, I learned from being in school. Whether students like it or not, school is a huge part of our life (though we may have a lot of other things going on) and teachers can take advantage of that. While I do agree that problems in society need to be addressed in order to make "full circle" progress, the naive first year teacher in me believes that students who are influenced positively by school will aid in making that full circle progress when they put their skills to improving society. That is my basic hope for education - that it gets the next generation ready to make the necessary changes to society. (Oh, to be fresh and full of foolish optimism? No, I just believe in people and the good that they can do.)

Finally, Harry also blogged about Parent-Teacher Conferences. I can only remember going to one PTC in my life and I have an amazing memory for things that do not really matter. It was in the fourth grade, with my mom. We had been called in because I was too talkative in class. There was a boy I liked that sat next to me, Micah, and we talked about EVERYTHING. My mother was not too pleased. Anyway, besides that "incident", I was the "perfectly behaved student" that every teacher hopes for and thus this was the first and last PTC I'd ever be called into.

Like most effective educators, I believe that communication among parents, students, teachers, and even administrators is vital to improving the quality of education that is offered. However, I don't believe that such communication should only occur when a teacher has something negative (or not positive) about the student. The only positive communication my teachers ever gave my parents was a phrase or two on my quarterly report card. Of course this ended all together after middle school.

I know it must be cumbersome keeping communication up with all these people - parents of possibly over a hundred students as well as administrators or other teachers who work with your students. I probably won't be able to keep up with it as much as I would like to, but that doesn't mean that I don't think that it's important.

On PTC's, I completely agree with Harry Potter in that PTC's should be different for high school and elementary school students. By the time students reach high school, they should be more responsible for their education and therefore able to discuss their progress and needs with their parents and teachers. Additionally, there are times when PTC's are necessary though an official PTC day isn't scheduled. Which brings me to this: I imagine some teachers need to discuss many of their students at PTC's. How can a teacher, all parents and students effectively discuss these important details in a half day?

So much to learn!

On a less serious note, I thought this blog was funny and hope that my students respect my nerdiness as his do. Also, I'm holding off on reading my TfSA or completing my ISG until I actually graduate from college. :) One step at a time...

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