I have taught for a long time. I have never liked grading. In fact I am not sure there can be fair or accurate grading. Teachers can't fully measure or appreciate what students learn. So much of it is hidden, or latent, waiting to be awakened, sometimes years later.
In the close of her argument, writer/teacher Claire Needell Hollander, argues the importance of literature in education: "We cannot enrich the minds of our students by testing them on texts that purposely ignore their hearts. By doing so, we are withholding from our neediest students any reason to read at all. We are teaching them that words do not dazzle but confound."
The key word here is "dazzle."
All subjects should "dazzle."
I have been thinking about the science classes I was subjected to, and the science classes that luckier students enjoy here at the college. I don't remember encountering living beings in biology other than my classmates and teacher. I learned about flowers and pollination without ever looking at a living plant and I memorized plenty about genetics without ever witnessing the results of a broken code.
Now I feel as if I am doing science on my own. I am daily dazzled by the world, and I am daily filled with questions. Do horses befriend one another? What do they see when they stare at me? Does the Calico Pennant, too new to fly off from me, see me? Am I in focus? In color? Do I register as dangerous? Friendly? Why do the Pennants emerge so slowly now, one at a time, rather than in the swarms of Blue Corporals?
1 comment:
I love your point, Robley, and totally agree! I remember thinking I would love my first biology class and then . . . the textbook. That was the class. A bit of a let down.
Post a Comment