assignments ENGL301 Writing & The Teaching of Writing: LT sample journals/in-class
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7Lives on the Boundary 1-3, 4-6
I won’t lie. I find Mike Rose’s story both sane and humane and, in some ways inspirational. I appreciate his full on belief that a really great teacher can make a real difference in a student’s life. I do. And I think that most of my students want to be that teacher for other students. But, I also believe this: you can’t save all your students. You can’t be McFarland period. You can’t be Carruthers all the time to all students. You’ll kill yourself if you do. And I’m not that person. I also don’t think that being a savior is entirely right for students. This is why I always talk about assignments. Because if you say to me that if you can reach out to just one student, you’ll be happy with your job, I’m going to tell you to find a different one. Because you need to try to work with all of your students. Every single slack ass one of them.
My other critique of Rose is more about something he can’t control. I believe that when he wrote this in 1986 he might have believed that what he was writing would resonate with every student (and despite this classes reaction, I often find this to be the case). But in 2017, I can not help but recognize that, despite his poverty as a child and even his generation 2.0 status, he had a great deal of privilege as a young white male in the 1950s. I know people don’t like it when you say that, but it’s still true. If he had been, say, a young black woman in the south at that same time, what would his story have been? Well, she wouldn’t have ended up at Loyola, that’s for sure. But, even today’s young students who need to over come first generation, socio-economic and color and gender barriers simply have a different landscape. It’s not become easier to overcome poverty in our country; it’s become harder. So I don’t even know if this is the story you could tell today.
Finally, one thing that he never really talks about his how his particular education is a kind of education that is, to a certain extent, not really diverse. There is certainly value in the great books education he is describing here, but, embedded in that education is a lot of exclusion and elitism. He could probably see himself in those texts, but I’m not sure that is really the case for all students. There are limits to this kind of education.
Top Five Really Big Ideas:
1. We profoundly misunderstand what “remedial” means—or what a deficit looks like. This is true about a general public. This is true about the US historically. This is true for many of us who teach in classrooms.
2. We profoundly under-understand the role poverty plays in depriving students of a good education. It is not just a poverty that means you go to a bad school. It also means that you have nothing around you that inspires a passion in you.
3. A humane liberal education, as espoused by the McFarlands of the world is less about content as it is about the process of engagement. It is authentic reading and authentic discussion that creates the file in Rose and the other students in his classroom.
4. Inspiration does not trump academic preparation. When Rose gets to Loyola, he does not have the academic skills to manage this new landscape. This is not to be confused with intelligence. And this is related to what I want to say next:
5. We have profoundly useless measurements of whether a student is a thoughtful, capable thinker (not intelligent—a totally different thing and not just a good student; you can be absolutely a dumbo and do well in school).
6. Students are not the only people at fault for their lack of success. This connects to many things that we are seeing here. Poverty of home life and educational
7. Access—who gets to go to the good school; who gets to go to the
8. Teaching is a powerful thing.
9. Educating in a democracy is hard and joyous at the same time
I won’t lie. I find Mike Rose’s story both sane and humane and, in some ways inspirational. I appreciate his full on belief that a really great teacher can make a real difference in a student’s life. I do. And I think that most of my students want to be that teacher for other students. But, I also believe this: you can’t save all your students. You can’t be McFarland period. You can’t be Carruthers all the time to all students. You’ll kill yourself if you do. And I’m not that person. I also don’t think that being a savior is entirely right for students. This is why I always talk about assignments. Because if you say to me that if you can reach out to just one student, you’ll be happy with your job, I’m going to tell you to find a different one. Because you need to try to work with all of your students. Every single slack ass one of them.
My other critique of Rose is more about something he can’t control. I believe that when he wrote this in 1986 he might have believed that what he was writing would resonate with every student (and despite this classes reaction, I often find this to be the case). But in 2017, I can not help but recognize that, despite his poverty as a child and even his generation 2.0 status, he had a great deal of privilege as a young white male in the 1950s. I know people don’t like it when you say that, but it’s still true. If he had been, say, a young black woman in the south at that same time, what would his story have been? Well, she wouldn’t have ended up at Loyola, that’s for sure. But, even today’s young students who need to over come first generation, socio-economic and color and gender barriers simply have a different landscape. It’s not become easier to overcome poverty in our country; it’s become harder. So I don’t even know if this is the story you could tell today.
Finally, one thing that he never really talks about his how his particular education is a kind of education that is, to a certain extent, not really diverse. There is certainly value in the great books education he is describing here, but, embedded in that education is a lot of exclusion and elitism. He could probably see himself in those texts, but I’m not sure that is really the case for all students. There are limits to this kind of education.
Top Five Really Big Ideas:
1. We profoundly misunderstand what “remedial” means—or what a deficit looks like. This is true about a general public. This is true about the US historically. This is true for many of us who teach in classrooms.
2. We profoundly under-understand the role poverty plays in depriving students of a good education. It is not just a poverty that means you go to a bad school. It also means that you have nothing around you that inspires a passion in you.
3. A humane liberal education, as espoused by the McFarlands of the world is less about content as it is about the process of engagement. It is authentic reading and authentic discussion that creates the file in Rose and the other students in his classroom.
4. Inspiration does not trump academic preparation. When Rose gets to Loyola, he does not have the academic skills to manage this new landscape. This is not to be confused with intelligence. And this is related to what I want to say next:
5. We have profoundly useless measurements of whether a student is a thoughtful, capable thinker (not intelligent—a totally different thing and not just a good student; you can be absolutely a dumbo and do well in school).
6. Students are not the only people at fault for their lack of success. This connects to many things that we are seeing here. Poverty of home life and educational
7. Access—who gets to go to the good school; who gets to go to the
8. Teaching is a powerful thing.
9. Educating in a democracy is hard and joyous at the same time