Mortality / English Education

I am posting a bit later tonight because I just got back from attending the opening meeting of the Teacher Induction Program put on by Santa Barbara County's Education Office.  For those of you that do not know, all new California teachers must undergo a two-year induction program in order to get a clear credential. Programs like this one are part of the education's field's drive to further professionalize teaching and provide support to teachers.  Professional development opportunities  are one of the many things that are being tried to improve the quality of education.  From my past experience, I have seen that one of the most important ways to increase student learning is to support the growth of teachers.  I am hoping that this program will be a great opportunity for me to grow as a professional educator.

In class today, the English 11 students worked with William Cullen Bryant's poem "Thanatopsis" and the AP students finished looking at different types of arguments and applied their knowledge to a reading of Francine Prose's "I Know Why the Caged Bird Cannot Read".

English 11 - We opened up class by reflecting on moments when we confronted our own mortality.  Both students and I shared stories from our lives about moments when we considered that we will die eventually or had sudden brushes with death.  I personally reflected on my experience having a pulmonary embolism and undergoing biopsies to determine if I had lung cancer when I was between the ages of 22 and 24.  We then collectively listened to electronic musician Daedalus's song "Thanatopsis" and discussed the thoughts it conjured as we listened.  We discussed the features of the music that created those thoughts and how they might relate to feelings of facing mortality.  Most of our discussion focused on the almost epileptic feeling created by the vocal sampling.  All of this discussion served as a good entry point into Bryant's poem.  The title of Bryant's poem comes from combing the Greek words thanatos (death) and opsis (seeing).  In the poem, Bryant discusses how reflecting on the natural world can comfort us when we are confronted with our eventual demise.  I wanted the students to get a better grasp of translating archaic, difficult prose into their own words so I had them summarize sets of lines on their own.  We then worked together over the course of the class and read passages out loud and created an overall summary of what the lines were describing.  Bryant's poem asks us to realize that when we die, our bodies decay and are enshrined in the beautiful tomb that is the earth where they provide nutrients for the subsistence of the rest of the natural world.  Because of this fact and the fact that all will eventually join us in the tomb, Bryant argues that we should greet death as a comfortable sleep after a fulfilling day.  I like Bryant's ideas here and am especially impressed that he came up with them between the ages of 17 and 19.  However, I know that I am still at times the type of person who clings to life and isn't quite prepared to quietly walk down the hall and take my final nap.

AP - We finished talking about purposes, occasions, and kinds of argument and then applied our knowledge to Francine Prose's article.  Understanding the type of argument an author makes is key to criticizing it so the AP students started stretching skills they would need for the AP test and future college courses.  Prose's argument presents some controversial ideas about English education.  She argues that English education has lost its way by focusing on reading material that Prose thinks is too simplistic (Maya Angelou's I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings or Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird) or presenting complex reading material (Mark Twain's Huckleberry Finn or F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby) in simplistic ways that ignore their intricate beauty.  As we dug deeper into the argument and applied our understanding of types of argument, we found that Prose was primarily making an argument of definition about what English class was supposed to be.  Prose felt English class has come to be a place for moral and social reflection and instruction when it should really be a place for the development of critical reading and writing skills and aesthetic appreciation.  The students provided some quality discussion of her argument and started us down the road to pulling together academic essays on education and writing later in the quarter.  Personally, I found that Prose is right to some extent about English class, but I believe truly we need a synthesis of both definitions.  Since language allows us to reflect on our past and formulate decisions about our future, I find that moral development becomes intricately tied to critical reading and writing skills.  I have Lawrence Kohlberg, Erik Erikson, and Carol Gilligan to thank for these insights.  Additionally, I find her characterization of Lee and Angelou a bit troubling - these works can be rewarding and complex when they are met with the same critical reading and writing skills that one might apply to traditionally lauded writers, not to mention the fact that Angelou's poetry is being used for great things just on the other side of the campus in Mr. Shaw's psychology class.

Overall, I greatly enjoyed teaching today - a big thanks to all my students.  I felt like we got a lot of work done and you all greatly enriched my understanding of these pieces.   I will not be posting tomorrow because it is a block day.  Instead, I will reflect Thursday night on Wednesday and Thursday classes.

As an additional note, here is one of my favorite songs that deals with the ideas brought up in "Thanatopsis".  It's a cover of Scout Niblett's "Your Beat Kicks Back Like Death" and it is recorded by Swedish artist Jens Lekman.