My journey through Graduate School to earn a Masters of Art in Education. I was on track to become a teacher, but now everything has changed, and I'm on the job hunt with a Bachelor's in Liberal Arts and a Master's in Education with no teaching certificate.

 
We started the day by looking at how people read difficult texts. I know that if I have a specific set of questions to answer or some goal in the reading I become more effective, and general comprehension of editorial pieces is increased radically if the reader can figure out the bias of the author.

We moved on to metacognition, which is a great word. The dictionary listed 'meta' as meaning 'after' but I've always understood it to indicate the underlying foundation of a subject, such as metaphysics looks for the foundations of physics (at least from Aristotle's point of view), but the questions about metaphysics develop after we understand physics. Metacognition is all about knowing what you know and knowing what you don't know.

As children move from formal thinking to abstract thinking they develop a second voice. It is possible that this second voice allows children to begin to develop empathy on a serious note, and the rush of newly understanding things from other peoples view but still being self centered leaves adolescents with an 'audience complex' where they are convinced that everybody is looking at them and passing judgement.

On to tutoring. We met A, who wasn't in town on Monday, and while I went over the math assessment with R she worked with my cohorts J and S. After a break I worked with A to go over her assessment. These girls are about two years apart in their mathematical development but there were a lot of similar strengths and weaknesses in their mathematical knowledge.

In Dimensions of Learning we finished our discussion of the Perennialist and Essentialist philosophies of the purpose of schools. The presentations were a bit over the top and one sided. The perennialists teach the classics and as a math teacher I will have a whole year to do Geometry, which comes almost entire out of Euclid. I almost have to have a perennialist or essesntialist curriculum. I can use progressive methods in teaching, and that in fact is what most teachers do. Of course, with the No Child Left Behind Act even the methodology is turning towards an essiantialist beat.

We keep discussing the No Child Left Behind Act and I wish we could an all day seminar on it. Take some Friday when we don't have classes and just talk about it. What it means and what it's implications are going to be for us as teachers. It would take off some of the stress and we could move on, but the faculty seem to talk about it for a few minutes then close the discussion. We sink our teeth into it and are told to chew on something else. I don't think it's a good model for teaching.

We were asked to write up our idea about what the purpose of School is. I'll have to think about it.
posted by Josh English at 7/02/2003 08:18:00 PM