Class Feb 2

Rachel and I presented last week. I thought it was interesting that the things she and I found so very bizarre did not seem to have phased the rest of the class. It also struck me that some of the questions we posed were for discussion, not for right and wrong answers. However, people were expecting right or wrong answers. In a discussion often the point is to talk about ideas and generate more ideas. Hearing what someone else thinks gives us a different perspective and a chance to change our own thinking. We brought the candy to encourage talking, but people spoke anyway. I liked that almost everyone in the class actually contributed to the discussion. I truly liked that some people who rarely speak up added to the discussion. I also liked that working with Rachel we were both able to bring in things that weren't in the reading. We had different ideas that we bounced off each other. I felt it was a successful class.

In looking at the group activity we worked on the rest of class I find it interesting that no two groups saw the same destination. Having such a variety of approaches it made it difficult to "judge" what was written by each other group. None of the groups wrote up their plan with enough detail for a sub. With that in mind I could have told each group, mine included, that they were failures in the planning for a sub stage. This makes me think of another thing. As a sub, I don't care at all about WHY the class is doing something, I merely want to know what and how. If the topic is very important to the development of the class I really hope that the teacher will be re-doing the entire lesson, because I do not have the background to cover the topic with enough competency to merit having done it in most cases.