CD

Honestly, the Postman article confused me a bit, but I think I understand what he is trying to say. That being said, a few things set my crap detector off while I was observing the classroom. First was how vocabulary was handled. From what I gathered, the students were given a vocabulary list and told to find the definitions of. They then went over the definitions in class. About a week later, they would review the words and take a quiz the next day. My teacher was annoyed when she realized most of her students were doing poorly. I wasn't surprised at all. These kids probably looked at the sheet once after finding the definitions. Why should they care what the words mean? I did like how she handled it last time. The day before the quiz, instead of just reviewing the words, she assigned each student at word to write a short personification of it. This helped them get an idea as to what the words were supposed to mean. One of the students even asked if they could do that every time for review. I liked the review, but I felt like it was still the first time in a while since the students were looking at those words. The vocabulary, in my opinion, needs to be incorporated more into the course, otherwise it's just more crap that the students need to memorize. 

There is also To Kill a Mockingbird. While I love the book, I do not really like the way she is teaching it. They either read it aloud in class, or they are assigned two chapters to read and have a "discussion" the next day. These discussions are really just summaries of the chapters. What was important? Why did this happen? Who is this character? The students aren't really engaging in the text at all. 

Meanwhile, in her acting classes, there is so much engagement. The students really get into acting their parts, even the shy ones. There are some days when the students ask "Can we do our Spoon Rivers monologues today?" or "Can we work on Grimms?" They are very active in what they are doing. I really wish she was able to get the same energy and engagement in all of her classes.