Education does not only take place in the classroom. I tell myself this all the time, as I venture out the door to go sit in my garden and do my correcting. I sit under the gracious afternoon sun and walk through my papers. We are in our third week of school and my students are all very challenged, some are good, most are not. I wince at some of the sentences, I think, what am I doing with this class?
The birds sing their songs of wooing, I watch as the cat from next door tries to bag one of these prolific singers for lunch. The cat is too slow, and our singer flees to the top of the trees. He sits and continues to proclaim his love for his ladybird at the top of his lungs. Ah, summer in the garden.
I always think about taking my students to the garden. It would be wonderful, I think. We could draw and label the plants in English. We could talk about the seasons, growing food, soil, worms, birds, plants, rocks, fences, roses, chicken poop, spades, sweet peas, tomatoes, god, it's endless! Then I think to myself, no, my students are too young to appreciate what I see here.....why it is important. They would just turn on their phones, peer into them like zombies and tune out....
I dismiss the idea and go back to my homework. Yet, part of my mind drifts back to the what if, what if they really did like the garden, what if they really learned something.? This is the curse of a teacher. Always wondering, always thinking about what you could do to get your student interested in the world around them. Forget writing, structure, nouns, peer editing....forget all that.....the world needs to be engaged. There is so much out there....I dig my heels into the cool grass below the bench. I breathe deeply....it's time to get my correcting done.
Saturday, June 16, 2012
Wednesday, May 2, 2012
They really do listen......
My spring semester has just ended, and just in time. My energy is gone, it's completely depleted.
I look forward to a very long May, I am going to attempt to fulfill my dream of going to Monticello, VA, then going for a wine tour. I will garden and write, I will try and regain my energy for my classes starting in early June. I will pack and get the house in order and go off for a few weeks to rest. However, before I leave, as I am organizing my office and putting all of my books in order, I sat down to read the reflections that my students wrote. Most students wrote about their challenges, what they learned, how much they worked, ordinary stuff. Except for this one student. She wrote " The most helpful thing is one sentence from my professor Diana, she said the most powerful weapon is the pen in your hand. I'm really impressed by this strong sentence and remember this in my heart."
We all hope that one student will remember just one thing, just one idea that we tried to plant in their young minds. As I write this, I realized that I have reached my goal of planting that one seed. Many of my students will go back to China, they will forget all of the summaries, all of the outlines and the vocabulary that we worked on. They eventually will fade from my memory, their names, their faces, their smiles, gone. The one thing I hope survives is the ability for them to recognize when they need to use that pen, when they have to find the strength in them to move themselves forward and use their intellect. In the end, it is the only thing that will collectively move us all forward. Viva education!
Rest well, all! I'll return this summer
I look forward to a very long May, I am going to attempt to fulfill my dream of going to Monticello, VA, then going for a wine tour. I will garden and write, I will try and regain my energy for my classes starting in early June. I will pack and get the house in order and go off for a few weeks to rest. However, before I leave, as I am organizing my office and putting all of my books in order, I sat down to read the reflections that my students wrote. Most students wrote about their challenges, what they learned, how much they worked, ordinary stuff. Except for this one student. She wrote " The most helpful thing is one sentence from my professor Diana, she said the most powerful weapon is the pen in your hand. I'm really impressed by this strong sentence and remember this in my heart."
We all hope that one student will remember just one thing, just one idea that we tried to plant in their young minds. As I write this, I realized that I have reached my goal of planting that one seed. Many of my students will go back to China, they will forget all of the summaries, all of the outlines and the vocabulary that we worked on. They eventually will fade from my memory, their names, their faces, their smiles, gone. The one thing I hope survives is the ability for them to recognize when they need to use that pen, when they have to find the strength in them to move themselves forward and use their intellect. In the end, it is the only thing that will collectively move us all forward. Viva education!
Rest well, all! I'll return this summer
Thursday, January 12, 2012
A New Year, a new semester....same ol' issues
Happy New Year! 2012! We're off to a great start this semester. I have two classes full of eager, rested students ready to work! I am organized, fueled and ready to go. The first few days are full of anticipation, both for my students and for myself. As the week went by, I realized that this may be a new year, but there are some things that will NEVER change...allow me to explain.
Day four of our first week, I start in on my in-class essay work. I have a great exercise where I give my students a postcard, pair them up, and ask them to talk about it, take notes and brainstorm about the senses it evokes, or words that come to them. We are working on a descriptive essay and my students seem sharp and interested even before we start. I start giving out the postcards, one is of Picasso's lover, one is a scene in Vienna, Austria, another is a scene in Santorini, Greece. Picturesque, beautiful landscapes, with brilliant blue skies, architecture that is thousands of years old. I am floating around the classroom, handing out my joy, in the form of a postcard. My traveling life is in this pile of postcards and I'm delighted to share it with my students.
I give two males students the postcard of the Sistina Chapel, The Creation of Adam. That's when it started. Immediately, they started laughing, I ignored them. I walked back to my computer and explained further what to do with the newly passed out postcard. They kept laughing, I continued to ignore them. Finally, I slowly start to realize that these two "boys" are in fact boys and that they may be laughing at Michaelangelo's depiction of the human body. This swiftly enters my brain, and I solidly reject it. Surely, this is a group of graduate students, this is art. How can think it's silly?
After I realized that they weren't going to stop anytime soon, I had to get up and go back and have a talk with my two hysterical males. I quietly asked why they were laughing so uncontrollably. That's when one of my students said, "These are homosexy mens". I remain calm and ask them do you realize what you are looking at? They both shake their heads, no. I quietly tell them this is the cornerstone of High Renaissance Art. I ask them do they know what that means. They say no. I tell them to stop laughing and just do the assignment.
I go back to my desk and sigh a very long sigh......grown men looking at a drawing of a naked man and laughing hysterically, unable to stop........I shift my weight and look up at the ceiling and think, holy hairdos, I am teaching a bunch of eight year olds.
Day four of our first week, I start in on my in-class essay work. I have a great exercise where I give my students a postcard, pair them up, and ask them to talk about it, take notes and brainstorm about the senses it evokes, or words that come to them. We are working on a descriptive essay and my students seem sharp and interested even before we start. I start giving out the postcards, one is of Picasso's lover, one is a scene in Vienna, Austria, another is a scene in Santorini, Greece. Picturesque, beautiful landscapes, with brilliant blue skies, architecture that is thousands of years old. I am floating around the classroom, handing out my joy, in the form of a postcard. My traveling life is in this pile of postcards and I'm delighted to share it with my students.
I give two males students the postcard of the Sistina Chapel, The Creation of Adam. That's when it started. Immediately, they started laughing, I ignored them. I walked back to my computer and explained further what to do with the newly passed out postcard. They kept laughing, I continued to ignore them. Finally, I slowly start to realize that these two "boys" are in fact boys and that they may be laughing at Michaelangelo's depiction of the human body. This swiftly enters my brain, and I solidly reject it. Surely, this is a group of graduate students, this is art. How can think it's silly?
After I realized that they weren't going to stop anytime soon, I had to get up and go back and have a talk with my two hysterical males. I quietly asked why they were laughing so uncontrollably. That's when one of my students said, "These are homosexy mens". I remain calm and ask them do you realize what you are looking at? They both shake their heads, no. I quietly tell them this is the cornerstone of High Renaissance Art. I ask them do they know what that means. They say no. I tell them to stop laughing and just do the assignment.
I go back to my desk and sigh a very long sigh......grown men looking at a drawing of a naked man and laughing hysterically, unable to stop........I shift my weight and look up at the ceiling and think, holy hairdos, I am teaching a bunch of eight year olds.
Monday, January 2, 2012
Culture.....oh yeah, that!
I am on break and since being on break, I have taken to reading my many books that my friends and loved ones recommend to me. I have procured a new cookbook written by Julia Child's collaborator and bosom buddy, Simca. Since I love reading about food and the various adventures Simca had, I was thrilled to start reading about her life, her stories and how food has played a major part in all of it.
For those who do not know the background, Simca had a marvelous idea. She thought to compose a book of French recipes for the Americans who wanted to learn how to cook French. This is where her trouble began. Much like many of my students, Simca labored under the illusion that what is good for one, must be good for the other. The Americans are just like the French, we eat, they eat. The ingredients are the same, the attitude toward food is the same. She tried to get her first cookbook published by an American publishing house and received a flat refusal. Why? Too detailed, too complicated and not enough knowledge of how Americans REALLY cook. She was stumped, what could possibly be so different in America?
Enter Julia Child. Simca met Julia through a fellow friend and it was through Julia that she realized what many of my students do not. Culture is omni-present, it is in everything we think, do and act out. It is in our food, how we prepare our food, how we think about food and why we think in that particular manner. Julia helped Simca to realize that Americans do not approach food as the French do. The ingredients are different, they eat at different times, they would never even know were to purchase creme fraiche, let alone learn how to pronounce it. Simca was amazed and realized that she had been foolish. Culture matters, even in the kitchen, with such a simple act as making a cookie or home roasting coffee, culture seeps into every aspect of the actions and the outcomes.
Reading Simca's account made me think about how bamboozled we are when faced with the actuality that other people in other countries simply do not do what we do. We travel to other countries and insist on carrying on in our own little cultural pods of behavior and thought, not realizing we are pissing everyone else around us off.
In conclusion, as we move through 2012 and continue to travel, write, compose, create, and in general move about with our fabulous lives, it is always important to think about our cultural expectations and just how odd they may seem to others! Happy New Year to all! May your new year be filled with cultural adventures, good food, great conversations, and fabulous books!
For those who do not know the background, Simca had a marvelous idea. She thought to compose a book of French recipes for the Americans who wanted to learn how to cook French. This is where her trouble began. Much like many of my students, Simca labored under the illusion that what is good for one, must be good for the other. The Americans are just like the French, we eat, they eat. The ingredients are the same, the attitude toward food is the same. She tried to get her first cookbook published by an American publishing house and received a flat refusal. Why? Too detailed, too complicated and not enough knowledge of how Americans REALLY cook. She was stumped, what could possibly be so different in America?
Enter Julia Child. Simca met Julia through a fellow friend and it was through Julia that she realized what many of my students do not. Culture is omni-present, it is in everything we think, do and act out. It is in our food, how we prepare our food, how we think about food and why we think in that particular manner. Julia helped Simca to realize that Americans do not approach food as the French do. The ingredients are different, they eat at different times, they would never even know were to purchase creme fraiche, let alone learn how to pronounce it. Simca was amazed and realized that she had been foolish. Culture matters, even in the kitchen, with such a simple act as making a cookie or home roasting coffee, culture seeps into every aspect of the actions and the outcomes.
Reading Simca's account made me think about how bamboozled we are when faced with the actuality that other people in other countries simply do not do what we do. We travel to other countries and insist on carrying on in our own little cultural pods of behavior and thought, not realizing we are pissing everyone else around us off.
In conclusion, as we move through 2012 and continue to travel, write, compose, create, and in general move about with our fabulous lives, it is always important to think about our cultural expectations and just how odd they may seem to others! Happy New Year to all! May your new year be filled with cultural adventures, good food, great conversations, and fabulous books!
Thursday, December 8, 2011
End of the Semester......Do I have to keep coming to class?
There are forty five students right now who are writing a paper about a novel they read and don't understand. Novels are cultural....everything about a novel reaks how a group of people behavior and how other's perceive that behavior. My students don't understand a lot of what they read, due to the fact that they are too busy speaking their mother tongue to actually try and deal with the complexity that is reading in another language. Granted, I know how they feel. I tried to read a fourth grade children's book in a bookstore in Naples, I struggled, but after forty five minutes, and with the help of all those gloriously glossy picture, I got the idea. Success! I wasn't going to give up. The clerk at the bookstore was looking at me, nervously the whole time, trying to figure out what a grown woman was doing in the child's book section.
I do everything within my power to make this an easy process, I scaffold (build the steps to help my student understand the material better) I give them outlines they need to fill in with main and minor ideas, I provide group discussion questions, I give them notes. Still, they read, they gloss over in class, they clam up. I groan.....nothing I do can get them to read.
A student sent me an email at 11:59 p.m. Professor, I am lost. I don't know what to write. This is NOT exactly encouraging people, her paper is due in two days. What can I possibly tell this student? Why don't they ask me questions in class? Why aren't they willing to learn from their curiousity? It all boils down to culture and what they expect from a teacher. Groan...sigh.....what to do?
I do everything within my power to make this an easy process, I scaffold (build the steps to help my student understand the material better) I give them outlines they need to fill in with main and minor ideas, I provide group discussion questions, I give them notes. Still, they read, they gloss over in class, they clam up. I groan.....nothing I do can get them to read.
A student sent me an email at 11:59 p.m. Professor, I am lost. I don't know what to write. This is NOT exactly encouraging people, her paper is due in two days. What can I possibly tell this student? Why don't they ask me questions in class? Why aren't they willing to learn from their curiousity? It all boils down to culture and what they expect from a teacher. Groan...sigh.....what to do?
Monday, November 21, 2011
Professor, I like you. Actually, I love you!
As usual this semester, I am encouraging my students to email me if they have questions or would like to stop by for my office hour. Many take my advice, others I don't hear from at all, except toward the end of the semester, when they show up in my office, looking like they just saw a ghost. One such student is "Gary". Gary has been in contact with me at least once a week. He is a good student, he's gregarious and really likes to chat after class. He likes to email me about questions concerning the readings, cultural misunderstandings he goes through, writing issues, the list really is endless. He's a communicator. I like that.
He emailed me last week to let me know that he let me down and that he felt terrible about it when he couldn't answer a question concerning analytical ideas in class. That's when he dropped this interesting phrase. "Professor, I don't want to let you down, I like you. Actually, I love you. I love you a lot. I want you to know". Hmmmm....now a phrase like that would get most people thinking what is going on here?
Not me, this is normal language stuff. Happens to me all the time. When people are learning a language and have not acquired it, they tend to write things that would normally raise eyebrows. The problem is, my eyebrows cannot be raised anymore, I've heard it all.
I emailed him back "Hi Gary, thanks for the email. I appreciate that you feel that you did not perform to the best of your ability yesterday in class. Remember, we are learning and this is part of the learning process.
Thank you for your vote of confidence in my ability to teach the material well.
I hit send and sit back and think of all the dumb and slightly psychotic sentences I have stitched together and let them sail out of my big mouth. I laugh to myself and think, hey, this is language!
He emailed me last week to let me know that he let me down and that he felt terrible about it when he couldn't answer a question concerning analytical ideas in class. That's when he dropped this interesting phrase. "Professor, I don't want to let you down, I like you. Actually, I love you. I love you a lot. I want you to know". Hmmmm....now a phrase like that would get most people thinking what is going on here?
Not me, this is normal language stuff. Happens to me all the time. When people are learning a language and have not acquired it, they tend to write things that would normally raise eyebrows. The problem is, my eyebrows cannot be raised anymore, I've heard it all.
I emailed him back "Hi Gary, thanks for the email. I appreciate that you feel that you did not perform to the best of your ability yesterday in class. Remember, we are learning and this is part of the learning process.
Thank you for your vote of confidence in my ability to teach the material well.
I hit send and sit back and think of all the dumb and slightly psychotic sentences I have stitched together and let them sail out of my big mouth. I laugh to myself and think, hey, this is language!
Saturday, November 12, 2011
This girl can't be a professor, or can she?
I am very fortunate this semester to have class near a coffee shop. I have the luxury of pulling up and jumping off my scooter just a few minutes before class, grabbing a cup of coffee and feeling pretty good about myself. As luck would have it, I was pulling up one morning this past week to an empty meter that had my name all over it. I jumped off my bike and noticed a BU police officer on the other side of the road. I chose to ignore the fact that the said police officer was now on his way over, across the street, looking very purposeful, heading in my direction.
As I was wrapping my chain around the meter, he pulled up along side of me and said, "Excuse me miss, do you have a sticker on the scooter?". "Yes, every two years I have to renew it". He looked grumpy, his face was covered with a thick moustache and great gray eyes that didn't have a spec of kindness to them. I continued on locking up my bike. "You know, you can't park that scooter in the street," he added with a stern bark. "Yes, I know, that's why I park it on the sidewalk". "Scooters are very dangerous, in fact, most kids who drive them really don't know what they are doing," he chimed. He continued to go on and on about how dangerous they were, how many "kids" have no idea how to drive them. Then, he asked if I had a license. I looked at him with a confused knitted brow "Yes, I have a license! I have had one since I've been sixteen". "Well, he said, its only been a few years and you had better beware on that thing."
A few years? Was this guy nuts? As if the fates got tired of watching this guy yank my chain, two of my students rounded the corner. "Oh good morning professor!" "Good morning guys," I said right back. It was just then I noticed the cops face. His face had this shocked look of unbelief and of something else I wasn't able to assess at that moment. He sheepishly looked down and asked quietly, "are you a professor?" Yes, I said, have been for five years". "What is it you teach". "I teach writing, I specialized in academic writing. I could hear him cringing. "My name is Pat, Pat Nunnati, and what is your name, young lady?" My name is Diana, I stated. "You know, I love to write, I'm not so good at it, but I do love it". "That's great" I said. "Listen, I'm sorry about the scooter thing, I thought you were a kid." "Oh, I'm no kid" I said with a forgiving smile on my face. I shook his hand to let him know that there was no hard feelings. As I was walking away from him, he shouted out "you know, if you'd like to get together later for a coffee, I'd really enjoy that".
I waved as I disappeared into the building. As I climbed the stairs I thought to myself, a kid, yeah, right!
As I was wrapping my chain around the meter, he pulled up along side of me and said, "Excuse me miss, do you have a sticker on the scooter?". "Yes, every two years I have to renew it". He looked grumpy, his face was covered with a thick moustache and great gray eyes that didn't have a spec of kindness to them. I continued on locking up my bike. "You know, you can't park that scooter in the street," he added with a stern bark. "Yes, I know, that's why I park it on the sidewalk". "Scooters are very dangerous, in fact, most kids who drive them really don't know what they are doing," he chimed. He continued to go on and on about how dangerous they were, how many "kids" have no idea how to drive them. Then, he asked if I had a license. I looked at him with a confused knitted brow "Yes, I have a license! I have had one since I've been sixteen". "Well, he said, its only been a few years and you had better beware on that thing."
A few years? Was this guy nuts? As if the fates got tired of watching this guy yank my chain, two of my students rounded the corner. "Oh good morning professor!" "Good morning guys," I said right back. It was just then I noticed the cops face. His face had this shocked look of unbelief and of something else I wasn't able to assess at that moment. He sheepishly looked down and asked quietly, "are you a professor?" Yes, I said, have been for five years". "What is it you teach". "I teach writing, I specialized in academic writing. I could hear him cringing. "My name is Pat, Pat Nunnati, and what is your name, young lady?" My name is Diana, I stated. "You know, I love to write, I'm not so good at it, but I do love it". "That's great" I said. "Listen, I'm sorry about the scooter thing, I thought you were a kid." "Oh, I'm no kid" I said with a forgiving smile on my face. I shook his hand to let him know that there was no hard feelings. As I was walking away from him, he shouted out "you know, if you'd like to get together later for a coffee, I'd really enjoy that".
I waved as I disappeared into the building. As I climbed the stairs I thought to myself, a kid, yeah, right!
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