In class today, when Mr. Wasserman told us to reflect and just write about whether or not we felt “we made the right decision,” I initially just thought it was BS; just being honest here. Although now that I’ve had some time to reflect on it, I really think that it is a very significant question.
For the big picture, we are moving towards answering the question “How does this book challenge or confirm my fundamental beliefs about how the world works?” It could very well be that the question of whether or not we think we made a good decision, will define how well we can answer the question above. I personally felt that I did make the “right” or a good decision when it came to both my book and my group. Although “Snow Falling on Cedars” can be quite slow, dull, and boring at times, it definitely contains some content and some concepts that do challenge and/or confirm some beliefs of mine. Also, the people that I am working with are key to successfully answering such a question, because they bring up ideas and contribute their own thoughts and personality to the group, that allows me to have a better underdstanding and a deeper interpretation of the text.
So far there hasn’t been to many things that I think “Wow I totally agree,” or anything like that. I don’t know if it is because I’m just not paying attention to the text in a way that allows me to make such connections, or it could just be that my views don’t conflict or agree with the book to a significant event. It’s hard to explain, but I guess different things and beliefs are deffinitely different, and also the extent to which they care about them varies. So although nothing has popped out at me so far, I’m sure that something will come about, or I can really get into it and think about some of those issues that are just mild to me.
Entries (RSS)
March 29th, 2007 at 8:16 pm
That honesty is HUGE, JJ. Because I felt the same thing when I first came up with the assignment–is this valid pedagogy, or is it just a load of BS? I talked it through with some other teachers, all of whom had varying opinions (surprise, surprise), but I was sold on Mr. Walker’s point that this questioning of why we read, and what happens in our brains when we read, is a part of learning how to learn. He’s told me about a study that showed that students who spent time studying brain function and the actual scientific things that happen when humans think did better in school and improved academically. We’re not quite there yet, but I think this is a small step in the right direction. Thanks for the input!