I've been going to Booker T. for field experience for the past few weeks and I am a little disappointed in my experience. Despite the great camaraderie my teacher has developed with his students, he seems defeated by the imposed curriculum requirements. I can see the classroom dynamic runs smoothly because of his classroom management skills, but the main purpose of my observation was to pay attention to his instruction. I enjoyed the fact that he started classes off with a CNN video for the students to see what was going on in the world, but everything after that seemed very sterile. I can see that the students are rarely interested int he subject matter of whatever text they are reading like surviving while hiking. It is unlikely that these students will be hiking in the foreseeable future, yet they are supposed to be engaged? It makes no sense to me and I can tell that it makes no sense to my teacher, yet he continues on with the lessons.
To keep lessons from zapping the joy out of learning, we have to be creative. We must find a way to meet the requirements but in a way that actually works. This of course is not an easy take, but it is one we must take on if we intend to save students' love for learning and our own love for teaching.
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