Max's+Journal+Week+3-4

Working with students in a Language Arts and Social Studies setting really gives me a great amount of opportunity to use virtual and projective identities. The first of which is having students place themselves in the role of someone, whether it be a poet when working on their writing or a Japanese factory worker at 8:15 on August 6th in 1945, once placed in these identities students can permit themselves to start thinking and seeing through a different lens than their own. It’s far too easy for young people to place themselves in at a mental cast, preventing new thought or growt. I was really intrigued by the idea of giving students permission to think in different ways or believe that they’re smart by giving them an alternate identity with which they are able to interact with their peers.

I’ve encountered a lot of students over the past few years that have definitely possessed a damaged identity. 40 minutes before class this evening I was at the Track coaching shot-put. One of my throwers is a senior boy that had never done a sport before who came out for track to be social and perhaps to try and get into better shape. He’s been working hard but isn’t very physically talented and just not aggressive enough to get there. This evening he was getting frustrated and asked how many more throws he had to take, I told him 2 more and he groaned, basically admitting that he didn’t feel like he was really doing any good. Since I knew he was a little pissed off I walked out into the pit and told him to throw the shot at me. He got aggressive when he threw this time and nearly got my feet. I pulled him aside and basically told him that he can adopt that identity of being an aggressive guy whenever he comes to the track and it will help him get better. Adopting the mentality has been something I’ve been working hard at getting my athletes to understand and I think it translates directly to academics, just with academic confidence rather than rage.

I think an example in Language Arts would be having students read a play, like Romeo and Juliet, But before having them read it I would show them a film or graphic novel version of the play. After sparking their interest I’d have them read the full play, working through the complexities as a group so they can garner a full understanding of the material. Finally I would take them to see a performance of the play. I believe that giving them multiple settings in which to absorb the play would allow for greater comprehension and also create a deeper understanding for performances.

This morning I got to work and two freshmen Honors English students told me that they’d found the book of poetry I wrote in college. This book was experimental, both in nature and in its descriptions of drug and alcohol abuse. I panicked, scouring my mind for a way to get them to stop reading it. It was on their phones in front of me and I wanted to take their phone and smash it so I didn’t get fired for writing poetry. Then I remembered where I had posted it, a blog for a workshop. I got on my phone and found the blog and systematically deleted every bit of my writing that was online. This evening I was talking with my mentor teacher about it, he told me not to worry. He said it was art and I didn’t do anything wrong for writing “real shit”. I realized that it was actually kind of cool that these two students and read an entire book of poetry and liked it, I then realized how cool it was that the writing was my own. It made me want to write more with a creative lens, which is something I haven’t really thought about since this program started.

I decided to play iCivics and have really enjoyed it so far. I’ve spent far too much time playing it actually. I can definitely see myself playing it with classes in the future to talk about how different countries play against each other when developing plans for interventions and diplomacy abroad.