Response to "Rejuvenation"

Rejuvenation

This reading had a lot more great moments for me than any of the Teaching Hope segments so far. A lot of them were solely about the teachers’ experiences, and many of those had some great introspection. However, the chapters that most reached me were the ones where individual students had really great breakthroughs.  After the last segment, I needed a collection of refreshing and heartwarming stories. Number 120 with Tara, the girl who was afraid to be in the Public Speaking class, was really nice to read. Another one that I really enjoyed the themes of was 112, which dealt with Max, the boy who assaulted his teacher. The forgiveness and understanding that the teacher shows is really admirable to me – I firmly believe in as many second chances as it takes to make a breakthrough, and the teacher really captured that well. 127 also really got to me, about Manie, the boy whose family was upset that he was visiting the Holocaust Museum. Watching a single breakthrough must be the most awe-inspiring thing, and although I haven’t seen anything like this at my summer camp quite yet, I certainly hope to experience this sometime soon in a classroom.

Response to "Engagement"

This section was a really interesting combination of uplifting stories and depressing, but motivating ones. Many of these stories involve students making some kind of breakthrough. One trend that I thought was interesting in this section was that it had a lot more focus on rural schools and the issues that come with that, rather than the urban stories which I generally think of with Erin Gruwell’s work. The section where the teacher worked with the white student with racial prejudice was a scenario that I think about a lot. I thought it was handled well in that the teacher didn’t merely lecture him as to why that was inappropriate – the teacher asked questions and made it a long-term goal to introduce new perspectives to compare with those proposed by his family. I think my favorite breakthroughs in the chapter were those in which a student decided to open up with either the teacher or the entire class. 

One section that I was uncomfortable with the teacher's behavior was Section 56, which dealt with a homophobic student who had made inappropriate statements of opinion. Although the teacher may not have intended to do so, the technique they used to deal with the student was not one that encouraged tolerance or explained why those statements were inappropriate - the teacher basically just embarrassed the student in front of everybody in the classroom. That was not the action of an impartial tolerant instructor - it pointed out ignorance without pointing the student in the right direction. Essentially, it was hating the sinner, and not the sin.

Response to Teaching Hope, "Challenges"

This was a very intense reading. All of these teachers had incredibly emotional experiences to write about. Most of them had been through trauma in their lives, but many of those had hopeful outlooks for what was to come. One section that deeply affected me was Section 24, which recounted a scene in which a tense classroom wrote positive Post-It Notes to one another, and one girl who was being victimized by bullies and rumors to the point of suicide received a note saying “I am happy you are here.” It really clicks with a philosophy of mine that while most people are inclined to naturally behave indecently with one another, almost everybody will eagerly step up and be a good person in a time of need.

Another section that connected with and reassured me was the one about the student who wrote a letter to his teacher about how he came from a more together home than his peers, and he felt left out of their discussions about their difficult home lives. The teacher’s response was one that I felt well about – a response explaining that everybody has their own situation and that the student is in a wonderful learning situation, to see what parts of the country can be like. The teacher also modeled good behavior by creating a classroom where that discussion was encouraged and appropriate. 

Response to "Anticipation"

Of all the things that worry me about being a teacher, the “first day” is definitely in the running for first place. It seems that everybody around me is really confident about it, but this chapter is definitely calming and relieving in that it shows people, who seem like really good teachers, having the same fears and worries that I do.  A lot of the teachers in the book made decisions that I would have seen as mistakes, such as showing up on a student’s doorstep. These things took a lot of guts, but I was glad to see that these issues worked out in the end. I have a tendency to see critical make-or-break moments where there really aren’t any, and it’s good to know that there is enough leniency to account for not everybody being perfect.

That being said, there was a positively immense amount of courage in the chapter – an amount of courage that I’m not sure I have. Perhaps I’ve just never been in a situation where I need to step up the way these teachers did, but that is one nagging thing in my mind.  I’ve worked with children who had particular issues with racism, heterosexism, sexism, etc. at summer camp, but that has been easier to help with because I live with the campers for two weeks with no negative outside influences. I imagine it is heartbreaking to feel like you’re making a breakthrough in the classroom, then the school bell rings and you watch them go off into what could be a bad world. I guess it just comes down to doing what you can while you can.