On being a "good" student
Doesn't the focus on the paradox of being the "good"student and the "good" teacher in/of critical pedagogy make you just want to be bad? It's interesting to me (and narcissistic of course) that as a student I was both good and bad. I think that I started early on as a good student because I was uinspired by learning and by good teachers who helped me along. After third grade though thing sbegan to go downhill, until I dropped out my Junior year of high school. So I was "bad" I guess at that point--or was I really "good" for refusing the institution? I got by continuing to be my "bad" self through college but then became inspired again in grad school. What inspired me--and seemed to be similar for others in the class--probably had something to do with wanting to "be" the teacher I most admired, but had more to do with wanting to do more to educate others than had been done for me. To provide the context that we were talking about. I never have seen myself as the center but rather the person who sets the scene.
And although I dislike the centrality that Amirault puts on himself as the teacher, I still find this useful to contemplate. . .and so, since it's a blog, that's what I intend to do.
Leda
posted by Leda @ 5:04 PM
2 Comments:
I don't know. I was definitely what teachers would call the "good student," but I can't really say that my teachers inspired me to teach bc I did not want to be like any of them. I have been wanting to teach since I was 9 nine and maybe it's bc I was the youngest of my cousins and siblings (they were between 13-16) and they could not read. Instead they always came to me for help. I was mad a at a school system that could teach ALL children to read and I wanted to change that. Or maybe the reason that I wanted to teach was bc I knew that I wanted to be "Something" when I grew up and the only profession that I could see myself having access to was teaching-and not bc I saw many latina teachers- on the contrary I had my first and only latina teacher in hs and prior to that I had 1 African American female teacher in elementary school. However most of my teachers were female, so maybe that has something to with it?
But the Amirault article did make me think about the students I have taught. and I do wonder- do I think they are "good" bc they are doing what I want them to do?
I don't know?
i appreciate how we are framing the Amirault article to explore the "good/bad student" question; it's helpful to me.
My immediate reaction about the good/bad student is to think about all of the ways that I lived up to the good student image in grade school. I was constantly being compared favorably to my brothers, and I think the differences are instructive:
(a) They are both significantly darker skinned than I am, and my eldest brother, in particular, spent more time prior and during his early school years living amongst the less assimilated members of my mother's family.
(b) I was heavily medicated as a child to control a severe seizure disorder. As a result I was very quiet, docile, passive, and limited to low-level activities like reading. Furthermore, unlike many children my age, sitting quietly for long periods of time wasn't difficult in the least.
(c) I suspect that both of them have a form of dyslexia, though only one of them was tested for it, and after highschool at that.
Looking back I can think of one teacher (K-12) who I believe prioritized critical thinking over obedience.
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