Magnum Opus of Rants, part one: Then the Seventh grade happened and I was a terrible student
I was a terrible student. Particularly in high school I was a terrible student. Maybe that's a lie. I was actually a decent student up until a certain point and that point was the seventh grade. Before the seventh grade I was a straight-A student and even considered "gifted and talented" which I guess is the equivalent of honors classes for elementary and middle school. I even took summer courses for "gifted and talented" at Texas Tech University. Then seventh grade happened.
By the way, isn't most everyone "gifted and talented" by elementary and middle school standards? Really all we had to do was progress from coloring between the lines to memorizing multiplication tables. I'll admit, those tables did give me some trouble. Then seventh grade happened.
My universe crumbled in the seventh grade when my English teacher passed back our first graded writing assignment. It was turned in on typed black and white paper and returned bloody and crippled. Until this point, I was always praised for my creative writing but this was seventh grade and suddenly grammar was important.
I had to start getting help from a special teacher after school. She was not a "gifted and talented" teacher. She was helping me with my lack of grammar knowledge. She did her best but I continued to struggle with grammar into the eighth, ninth, tenth, eleventh and twelfth grade. It didn't help that Algebra was causing me equal problems during the same timeline but that's a totally separate devastating story. The only thing Algebra ever inspired me to do was cancel architect as a job prospect. On the other hand, grammar aside, I still enjoyed my English classes and upon deep reflection, made the decision to become an English teacher upon surviving the seventh grade.
Surely, I could have a mastery of grammar by the time I graduated college! They wouldn't allow me to become an English teacher without knowing how to diagram Direct and Indirect Objects.
Ten years later...
I graduated with my B.A. in English and was horrified at the prospect of teaching grammar! They didn't even ask about it in my job interview! After four years of learning grammar on the job in order to teach it, I still wouldn't claim to have mastery. I've met people who do and I bask in their brilliance hoping to absorb their grammatical knowledge by osmosis.
Now here's the ironic climax of my humble reflection/confession:
The most popular lesson I've developed concentrates on proper grammar! Really. A professor of mine (that has too much blind faith in my ability) even suggested I draft a first chapter to be passed along to a book agent. I'm actually working on that and can't think of a better example of personal irony, although there are many runner-ups.
Did you know I never took an AP or Honors course in high school? Yet, I taught pre-AP through honors classes as a teacher. I'm proud and frightened by these experiences. During my first year of teaching, i did a lot of developing with a fellow first year teacher. He described our shared fear best when he said "I'm scared most of all that one day someone is going to call me on my bullshit."
I struggle to shield myself from this fear coming true through lots of preparation and anxiety attacks. So far it seems to be working out in the end.
By the way, my high school counselor told my parents I probably wouldn't graduate high school or college due to my low test scores. Add that to the list of personal ironies.
I would love to incorporate a witty transition at this point but can't think of anything right now so I'm just going to wildly and gracelessly jump to my point.
Regardless...I suppose this reflection came to me when I was considering the learning process as a broad leg of my impending thesis research. Just to backtrack slightly, I've been brainstorming topics that included the writing process, documentaries, authentic teaching and learning, the X-men and blogging. I had no idea how to link everything together until my recent honeymoon.
One of the many nights I was up and unable to sleep due to the constant rocking of the Atlantic Ocean, it occurred to me that each element has contributed to my successes and failures as a student and teacher. Failure, because I struggle to learn without them but succeed when I can incorporate each into my learning.
Grammar, for example, is a painful struggle to me and I've tried learning from a variety of teaching aids and instructors. Nothing ever stuck! However, - and here's the part I failed to mention before - when I started to teach myself grammar by incorporating zombie survival tips, the topic was more interesting to me. Yeah, zombie survival. I think you'll understand why I didn't mention this before because if I had, then you would most definitely would stop reading and report me as unfit to be teaching even something as simplistic as coloring in-between the lines. Zombie survival is fun! Grammar is not. Basically I had to make it interesting to me. So I started a notebook with stick figure drawings of zombies and rewrote grammar rules in my own words. Then - here's the really scary part - I took that notebook and started sharing it with students! I had classes of students creating their own zombie survival guides!
The concept snowballed into full lesson plans, unfinished short YouTube videos and - as suggested by my wife - a copyrighted website in the works (www.zombiegrammarsurvival.com).
Just to get back on track again, this is not a new thing for me. It is how I learn but didn't realize it until my senior year of high school! How absurd to be struggling for so long and enduring traditional studying techniques that did not bear fruit when exams were returned! Before I ever started studying, I should have been trying to understand myself as a learner. It is a cliché ideal but I learn best by teaching. Now this is called Bloom's taxonomy or authentic teaching and learning, but apparently neither was created until after I graduated high school in 2001. I assume this to be true because the majority of my class time was spent engaged in rote memorization and regurgitation.
The writing process, documentaries, authentic teaching and learning, the X-men and blogging are all tools educators and students should utilize. Each plays an important role in climbing Bloom's taxonomy.
Again, it would be great to add another witty transition here but this is a first draft anyway. I like to abide by the rule of stopping while you still have more to say so you have something to write about tomorrow. Supposedly it was a rule from Hemingway. Or was it Faulkner?
