Reflections...

may be some of us will not be up to having anything to say. We might draw blanks. When I’ve blocked in the past, it hasn’t been so much a problem of not feeling like writing as of not really feeling like I had something worth saying…the reason that most writers don’t write is because they have nothing to say. I’m all too ready to agree that it applies to me, an unimaginative type if there ever was one. (Boise 45)

     This was the sentiment shared by quite a few of my students the first week of classes when I asked them to expound their development as a writer and how they imagined themselves appropriate the role of a writer. A lot of them believed, like I did too for most of my life, that writers are “a special breed.” They are people who wake up in the middle of the night because an idea strikes and they have to jot it down. But now we know: “Neither motivation nor imagination has any good reason to appear out of the blue.” I got a lot of gasps and sighs when I talked about the first paper, especially when I said that they had to writer about 3 to 4 pages. Also, as I had divided the assignment into different parts leading up to the final assignment, the students thought that it was a lot of ‘busywork,” and yes, I had students use this exact word/phrase. But because most of the preliminary assignments were low-stakes, free writing assignments, they did fairly good on them, and before they could realize, they had a good chunk of material for their final paper. In fact, I had the first peer review today, and most people had exceeded the minimum page limit and acknowledged how this was the easiest paper they had to write, because of all the prewriting that we did in class. I am a big believer of collecting ideas, taking “useful” notes (as I have learned from my past mistakes of taking more notes than I could possibly ever use or even glance at again) and consider outlines a breathing, living, constantly evolving body/process. I found a lot of useful things in this essay that I use in my own writing process and also incorporate in planning assignments for my class.

I keep wanting to hit the “like” button when I am reading (blame facebook for that!), and I liked the following a lot:

“I sometimes imagine that I alone could want to write and not want to write at once. Thank god, I’m not alone. Misery loves company” (Boise 76).

My reflections on Rogers’ reflections…

Rogers has used a very straightforward style (thankfully!) to discuss the extremely important and convoluted task of reflection, its utmost significance to teachers’ teaching practices and students’ learning abilities. I have been asked numerous times about my teaching philosophy (especially in interviews for teaching jobs), and I usually have a very well thought-out response ready to be blurted out before the interviewer has even finished with the question. But I often think about, or I “reflect” upon this idea of a teaching philosophy. I think reflection is an indispensable tool for teachers as it engages us with our students more than anything else. Every class, every student teaches us how we can make our efforts as teachers be the best in both theory and practice, and the fundamental thing that I have learnt over the last 3 years of teaching is that I have to adapt—adapt according to my experiences. I learn from every mistake I make and from every success that I get. I was particularly pleased with the mention of “curiosity,” because I have seen teachers, including me, complaining about how our students are not curious to know or to learn. I think we have to be curious to spark curiosity in our students—curious about the way they learn and engage, about what works in classes, what makes students grasp a concept or get excited about something, and our curiosity enables us to invent techniques that make us more successful in our endeavors as teachers. We should learn to think and learn from our thinking, because “once teachers learn to think, they can teach their students to do the same, for teachers teach best what they understand deeply from their own experience” (Rogers 864).