Memory and Teaching.

So this post has nothing to do with any of our readings or observations and I will probably post about one of those in the next few days but I was thinking about something and I wanted to share it with everyone. So a few days ago I was watching some TedTalks and I came across the one I posted above. (I will post a link to it as well just in case it doesn't work or something) and it got me thinking about how it could potentially relate to teaching.

I think it would work best to summarize it first just in case someone can't watch it, though I highly recommend it, it is very interesting. So this guy Joshua Foer was researching a memory competition for a quirky events piece. Turns out these people could remember crazy amounts of information in very small amounts of time (like a few hours) and the winner gets some kind of prize. The technique is called the "memory palace." Now some might remember hearing about this in small detail in CEP. Basically the technique involves picturing your house, or another familiar pathway, and populating it with strange symbols you've related to what you need to remember. He uses a nude bicycle race to remember the memory competition, Brittany Spears dancing in his living room to remember an anecdote involving her, and a few more as weird as that. Doing some scientific research he found that, after using brain scans, the people using this form of memory were using different parts of their brain than normal. Not only that they were using more of their brain and were able to recall more efficiently the things they remembered. It had do do with the visual section of their brain. It turns out that is where longer kept memories are formed.

Now I don't want to go too much into detail about it but what I was thinking was why not use this in class? He brings up a point about working more to remember and using your imagination. I was thinking as an English teacher I could use this to prompt my students to say visualize Hamlet. Maybe have them cast each character in the play and have them act them out in their heads. Maybe have them visualize a scene as we read. Often I worry that people read the wrong way. People read the words on the page but never let them come to life. I find I recall what I read better if I think about the passage as I'm reading it. If I really use my imagination to add another dimension to it.

So what do you think? Is there anyway something like this could be used in your content area?

Link: http://www.ted.com/talks/joshua_foer_feats_of_memory_anyone_can_do.html

Problem commenting

Is anyone else having problems commenting on other blogs? I find myself having a difficult time. Mostly whenever I write a comment I have to write it twice because the first time I publish it it just disappears. The second time I'm prompted to prove I'm not a computer by typing out those jumbled letter number things. I find myself unable to comment at all on a mobile device, which is annoying since I primarily use a tablet. I'm just wondering if anyone else has had this problem and if so any suggestions on how to fix it?

First Observations

So going through our first observations I noticed something that I think may end causing me difficulty in my life as a teacher. I have trouble giving criticism. So I guess to give context I'll talk about the last observation my group went to. There were roughly 25 kids in that class and a fair number of them weren't paying attention, not to say everyone was, but like a good 5 or so. When it got to that question that asked how many students were engaged or however it was phrased I fought between saying 50 to 75% which it was and the one that was like 76 to 90 percent. I don't know why I just felt kind of bad. Thinking back I find this to be strange, I know that these observations only help the teachers but still I find myself feeling guilty with the idea of criticizing someone. I worry how that will come through when I'm a teacher grading students. Deep down I know that pointing out where they did wrong can only help them in the future but sometimes there is that disconnect between knowing that and wanting to be honest with their work.

Lit Profile

Sorry for the delay here's my lit profile:

When I was young I used to love thinking up stories. I would spend class days day dreaming about new super heroes and ninja warriors, the kinds of things I’d watch when I got home from class, and think up stories for them to live in. I remember one day I spent five hours in my room writing and drawing a comic about a frog who had all his limbs replaced with jetpacks and the crime fighting adventures he’d get himself into. To tell you the truth all this attention to the make believe is probably the reason I never did so well in school as a kid.

            I never really stopped telling stories. I’d fill my journals with little ideas or characters that I had no room for yet but maybe one day I could find a home for. I’ve heard people say you don’t learn how to write stories you just wait for inspiration to strike. I don’t really agree with this. There’s a lot I did to improve my writing and there’s a lot I still can do.

            As I grew up and realized this was a passion of mine I wanted to learn how to improve. I started by reading interviews from the authors I admired the most. Mostly I was looking for any and all sage advice I could find. The vast majority of them said the same thing: write. Write every day, write often, finish what you write, and move on to the next thing. So that’s what I did. I gave myself a schedule, write every day for one hour, and I kept to it. It took me awhile to realize it but writing is a lot like exercising. Nobody walks into the gym and lifts huge amounts of weights their first day, nobody runs a marathon and expects to do well their first time. So as such I learned to accept that I would struggle at first, that my best work would come later and that I was working up towards it. I accepted that writing was like a muscle, not some magical inspiration generator, and that I had to work my creativity muscle.

            Next I read a lot. I didn’t just read books I enjoyed I read books I hated and I analyzed why I hated them. I learned what to avoid and from the good books I learned what worked. I read things like “Alan Moore’s guide to writing comics.” A book about ways to think up new innovative methods for writing comic books, though admittedly the material was applicable to any medium.

            I think writing stories and teaching have a lot in common. Writing requires a lot of organization, you have to keep track of all the characters, the settings, plots, ect. Teaching is a lot like that. You have to remember all your students, all their needs and accommodations, you have to organize your time and your ideas, and then there’s all the papers you have to organize. However I don’t think that is the most important similarity.

            Teaching and writing are, at their core, about one thing: getting your point across. As a writer you have to write a story that puts ideas in the reader’s head with out over explaining the symbols and metaphors. No one wants to read a book where all the author does is tell you what happens instead of showing you. The same thing goes for teaching. One can’t simply tell a student the meaning of a poem, or a show them a math equation. They have to present the material in such a way that the students can replicate it and show understanding. For both of them it’s not just about how great of an idea you think it is but also clearly you present it to your audience.

            I think that’s what I like the most about teaching and writing. They both depend a lot on you. With writing there are only so many plots, really when you break it down there are really only 2 plots in writing, what makes it unique is how you write it and what you bring to it. With teaching all the content is already there for you. You don’t have to write the poems you teach or discover the formulas or anything like that but how you put your own twist on it is what makes you a good teacher. There are plenty of resources out there to help you teach, much like the books that taught me how to write, but ultimately it’s about what you can bring to the table. 

CF First impressions

So I was admittedly nervous going into cf last week. I've heard bad things about the school in the news and then nothing much else outside of that. No one talks about cf unless to point out its small size or its economic problems. So going in I was pretty blind to the good that was going on. I was blown away by the clean and well put together school that made my moldy high school look like it was in shambles. I was so encouraged by jl's excited helpful attitude. It's obvious just hearing him talk that he is the right man for the job.

One thing I would say is that I'm personally against school uniforms so I wasn't thrilled to hear that they were being put into place. That being said I don't really know the situation there and it would be beyond me to question why they are being put into place.

Irony and Wilhelm Ch 2

After reading the second chapter of Wilhelm what stood out to me was the passage in which he tries to teach his students about Ozymandias. He reads the poem and the students are really excited, they read along and shout how great he is, then when he gets to the part where the speaker points out how useless the king is the students don't pick up on it. They're stuck on the initial thought that the King is this great legend. I had that same experience when teaching "the road not taken" by frost in my sed 406 class. Everyone thinks that poem is about how great it is to be an individual but really the poem is making fun of that thought. It's a poem about over indulged nostalgia. When I tried to get my 'students' to see that it was impossible. They were stuck on the idea of individualism that they were taught. For awhile I thought it best to just point out the parts that indicated the irony in the poem but what good would that do? They wouldn't know how to use irony or spot in on their own. After reading this passage I have to say I like his method. Irony is difficult and it makes sense to cultivate it through out a strongly supported unit before expecting students to just understand it.

First test post.