ginlindzey (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
ginlindzey) wrote2009-02-08 10:32 am
ginlindzey) wrote2009-02-08 10:32 am
Entry tags:
Are educational theories bad?
Ok, I just had a little rant on Latinteach. I"ll probably pay for it later but it really got me. The original post went like this:
***
Low Level: memorizing the role of Hamlet, or the text of any other lead
actor in a serious play; memorizing - yes- irregular verbs, principal parts,
etc.; the Greek gods, the basic stories of mythology; Bible verses; a
Rhapsode memorizing the epic; etc.
High Level: synthesis - writing a poem
I really have no regard at all for Bloom's taxonomy. When I first saw it, I
showed it to a friend, a graduate of Yale who is a filmmaker. "Whose
criteria are these?!?" he shrieked in horror. I trust it is little known
outside of USA, and probably little known outside California. I do
understand, from a friend who studied with Bloom, that she was very
personable.
***
Here's my reply (which hasn't been posted yet):
Yes, I'll grant you, but that's not what Bloom was talking about. And I think you know that.
How many people have students who can memorize vocab for a quiz? Can decline puella? But can't put it together to translate?
Memorizing lines of Shakespeare and ACTING THEM WELL/INTERPRETTING THEM are two different things. Plenty of people our age (middle age) memorized the preamble to the constitution because of the School House Rock song, and even though plenty of kids can sing it, how many of them can take it apart and truly understand it or explain the grammar of it?
What people hate are educational theories because they think they are a waste of time. But if they were a waste of time and if they have no bearing on why students who can memorize vocab and sing back the Endless Noun Ending song, what is your explanation for why little Johnny can't make heads or tales of a Latin sentence?
***
You know, you can find ANYTHING wrong with ANYTHING if you look hard enough. Is memorizing Shakespeare difficult? It can be, if the language is unfamiliar. But I certainly have strands of Shakespeare floating through my head, mainly from Hamlet, that have lasted all these years. I also have tons of commercials and lyrics and other nonsense. All memorized. I'm sure at one time I could recited the periodic table. And if you told me I had to memorize a passage of Greek for tomorrow I could do it. But don't ask me to UNDERSTAND it. I know some Greek Christmas carols that I've memorized that I couldn't tell you exactly what they mean.
But what Bloom was saying is that memorizing straight facts is easiest. And if you think about what Latin teachers have been WHINING about their students for generation after generation is mainly along the lines of why can't these kids take what they know and translate? They've got the vocab, they know their endings, why can't they take the time to apply everything and create MEANING?
Because it is a different kind of thinking. All education stuff isn't crap. A lot of it isn't in fact, it is just usually poorly presented in classes because it is't applied to anything. And in our methods classes everything is crammed in to one semester when some of the stuff could be a class on its own. There are theories and philosophies out there that I haven't begun to explore because I don't have the time--Krashen, Rassias, others who write about language acquisition.
To say, for instance, esp for a modern language, that immersion is the way to go is too general. How is it supported? What order is material presented? How does it build upon what the learner has been exposed to? Or is it sink or swim?
I know people who think immersion is utter crap. I say that probably their teacher was utter crap and didn't know what they were doing.
I think that if you have students who can memorize vocabulary and can decline a noun who are still failing major concepts and can't translate that there's probably something your missing. And, yes, some kids automatically do higher level thinking and can apply all the rules and generate, after treating Latin like a secret code, something close to a literate translation, albeit strained. Translating Latin shouldn't be like having constipation. It shouldn't be work. (You know, I could continue with this metaphor but nothing good will come of it.)
I've been utterly exhausted lately, exhausted beyond my means and over the edge and looking at crazyville. Too much to do both for classes and for home and other stuff. And the one thing I keep thinking during my frustration is that I wish I had more time to devote to THINKING about the problems my Latin 2's are having as well as ADDRESSING them. Because when they want to, they can all ace a vocab quiz (even one of mine in context) and they can decline the required noun or conjugate the required verb. But they aren't applying the information when they need to and I need to figure out why. What can I do to help build these skills? It's not about whether they are lazy, though some are, or they spend too much time online, though some do, or even what previous teachers did or did not do to build skills that these kids should have.
They don't have them.
It would be like me looking to blame vaccinations or computer use or whatever for why my younger son has pervasive developmental delays. IT DOESN'T MATTER WHY SKILLS ARE LACKING. We are the teachers. We need to address what's lacking so that all students can move on.
And until something better than Blooms can help me think about what's missing, I'm going to support understanding and using Blooms. If you think it's utter crap, fine. But don't expect you can just weed out your Latin classes so that you only get the good kids. Real life isn't like that. ANd if you do weed out your classes, they will be small classes. Your AP won't make. You'll have to teach other subjects. And then one day the school board will decide that Latin is unnecessary and being treated as an elitist subject anyway. Then you'll be looking for a job.
If you don't like students as much as Latin if not, maybe, a little more even, this isn't the job for you. Don't waste your time with student teaching. Go look at editing positions or something. Computer programming. Marketing. Good teaching isn't easy. This isn't a fallback position if you don't have what it takes to finish your PhD.
I better end my rant there. I'm sorry if I offended people. I don't know why the comment on Blooms taxonomy so pissed me off. Then again I don't believe anyone on Latinteach even made a comment about my suggestions to the problems of group work that teacher was having. Is it because, quite honestly, the grammar teacher really only wanted a certain type of answer? Was that it? And mine wasn't that kind of answer? They wanted to hear how someone else parsed information? You know, whatever. I have a lot of work to do, time to go do it and stop my ranting.
***
Low Level: memorizing the role of Hamlet, or the text of any other lead
actor in a serious play; memorizing - yes- irregular verbs, principal parts,
etc.; the Greek gods, the basic stories of mythology; Bible verses; a
Rhapsode memorizing the epic; etc.
High Level: synthesis - writing a poem
I really have no regard at all for Bloom's taxonomy. When I first saw it, I
showed it to a friend, a graduate of Yale who is a filmmaker. "Whose
criteria are these?!?" he shrieked in horror. I trust it is little known
outside of USA, and probably little known outside California. I do
understand, from a friend who studied with Bloom, that she was very
personable.
***
Here's my reply (which hasn't been posted yet):
Yes, I'll grant you, but that's not what Bloom was talking about. And I think you know that.
How many people have students who can memorize vocab for a quiz? Can decline puella? But can't put it together to translate?
Memorizing lines of Shakespeare and ACTING THEM WELL/INTERPRETTING THEM are two different things. Plenty of people our age (middle age) memorized the preamble to the constitution because of the School House Rock song, and even though plenty of kids can sing it, how many of them can take it apart and truly understand it or explain the grammar of it?
What people hate are educational theories because they think they are a waste of time. But if they were a waste of time and if they have no bearing on why students who can memorize vocab and sing back the Endless Noun Ending song, what is your explanation for why little Johnny can't make heads or tales of a Latin sentence?
***
You know, you can find ANYTHING wrong with ANYTHING if you look hard enough. Is memorizing Shakespeare difficult? It can be, if the language is unfamiliar. But I certainly have strands of Shakespeare floating through my head, mainly from Hamlet, that have lasted all these years. I also have tons of commercials and lyrics and other nonsense. All memorized. I'm sure at one time I could recited the periodic table. And if you told me I had to memorize a passage of Greek for tomorrow I could do it. But don't ask me to UNDERSTAND it. I know some Greek Christmas carols that I've memorized that I couldn't tell you exactly what they mean.
But what Bloom was saying is that memorizing straight facts is easiest. And if you think about what Latin teachers have been WHINING about their students for generation after generation is mainly along the lines of why can't these kids take what they know and translate? They've got the vocab, they know their endings, why can't they take the time to apply everything and create MEANING?
Because it is a different kind of thinking. All education stuff isn't crap. A lot of it isn't in fact, it is just usually poorly presented in classes because it is't applied to anything. And in our methods classes everything is crammed in to one semester when some of the stuff could be a class on its own. There are theories and philosophies out there that I haven't begun to explore because I don't have the time--Krashen, Rassias, others who write about language acquisition.
To say, for instance, esp for a modern language, that immersion is the way to go is too general. How is it supported? What order is material presented? How does it build upon what the learner has been exposed to? Or is it sink or swim?
I know people who think immersion is utter crap. I say that probably their teacher was utter crap and didn't know what they were doing.
I think that if you have students who can memorize vocabulary and can decline a noun who are still failing major concepts and can't translate that there's probably something your missing. And, yes, some kids automatically do higher level thinking and can apply all the rules and generate, after treating Latin like a secret code, something close to a literate translation, albeit strained. Translating Latin shouldn't be like having constipation. It shouldn't be work. (You know, I could continue with this metaphor but nothing good will come of it.)
I've been utterly exhausted lately, exhausted beyond my means and over the edge and looking at crazyville. Too much to do both for classes and for home and other stuff. And the one thing I keep thinking during my frustration is that I wish I had more time to devote to THINKING about the problems my Latin 2's are having as well as ADDRESSING them. Because when they want to, they can all ace a vocab quiz (even one of mine in context) and they can decline the required noun or conjugate the required verb. But they aren't applying the information when they need to and I need to figure out why. What can I do to help build these skills? It's not about whether they are lazy, though some are, or they spend too much time online, though some do, or even what previous teachers did or did not do to build skills that these kids should have.
They don't have them.
It would be like me looking to blame vaccinations or computer use or whatever for why my younger son has pervasive developmental delays. IT DOESN'T MATTER WHY SKILLS ARE LACKING. We are the teachers. We need to address what's lacking so that all students can move on.
And until something better than Blooms can help me think about what's missing, I'm going to support understanding and using Blooms. If you think it's utter crap, fine. But don't expect you can just weed out your Latin classes so that you only get the good kids. Real life isn't like that. ANd if you do weed out your classes, they will be small classes. Your AP won't make. You'll have to teach other subjects. And then one day the school board will decide that Latin is unnecessary and being treated as an elitist subject anyway. Then you'll be looking for a job.
If you don't like students as much as Latin if not, maybe, a little more even, this isn't the job for you. Don't waste your time with student teaching. Go look at editing positions or something. Computer programming. Marketing. Good teaching isn't easy. This isn't a fallback position if you don't have what it takes to finish your PhD.
I better end my rant there. I'm sorry if I offended people. I don't know why the comment on Blooms taxonomy so pissed me off. Then again I don't believe anyone on Latinteach even made a comment about my suggestions to the problems of group work that teacher was having. Is it because, quite honestly, the grammar teacher really only wanted a certain type of answer? Was that it? And mine wasn't that kind of answer? They wanted to hear how someone else parsed information? You know, whatever. I have a lot of work to do, time to go do it and stop my ranting.
postscript
Sometimes I just don't get it. AP doesn't run my program. I *wanted* to do AP. Yes, the students asked for it. The students wanted the AP credit. But I still bet I could get a class that was half Latin 4 or 5, as the case may be, and half Roman civ elective. I wish I had time to flesh that idea out.
I'm sure if I continued the discussion or argument on Latinteach that I would piss people off and just get upset myself. After all, it's not like I'm any great expert here. I just feel sometimes that I perceive things that others don't. I think there are times that I am too empathetic, spend too much time trying to get inside the head of my students.
I know the hard core facts are these: I have yet to produce a brilliant Latin student. I haven't yet sent anyone brilliant off to college. So I need to shut up.