NTT: Teaching strictly by the book

Nearly every teacher is required to use a textbook of some sort to teach their subject to students. This isn't much of a problem until you get to teachers who decide to teach using only the information in the book and not their own knowledge of the subject. These teachers will often have the students read parts of the chapter out loud or simply tell the students to read the book during the class period and do assignments related to the chapter. This can make the student think that the teacher doesn't know the subject they are teaching and can make the student think that the teacher is lazy.

Many teachers and students assume that the information contained within a textbook is accurate and this could be why some teachers choose to teach solely by the book. However, not all textbooks are accurate as James W. Loewen points out in his book "Lies my Teacher Told me: Everything Your American History Textbook Got Wrong". In the book, Loewen describes in detail how twelve of the most commonly used textbook for American history classes in high school inaccurately portray history and how none of those textbooks should be used to teach history because of how inaccurate they are. One of the books he talked about was "The American Pageant" a history textbook used for AP U.S. History classes across the nation. I have personal experience with this book and an AP teacher who decided to teach by the book instead of teaching AP U.S. History herself.

When I first signed up to take AP U.S. History I was expecting a class that would really challenge me and help me learn more about the history of the United States. The first day of APUSH my classmates and I were given a syllabus which told us what chapter we would be going over each week until the AP exam, what assignment we would have to do, and what day it would be due on. I was expecting a lecture based class and I was surprised when Ms. W didn't get up to lecture and simply told us to grab a textbook and start reading. This continued through out the school year. If we finished our assignment early, we were allowed to play around on our school issued laptops or work on assignments for our other classes. Every few weeks we would have a test over the chapters we had read and occasionally we would look at previous APUSH tests and what they expected us to know for it. By the time that the AP test came none of us in the class were properly prepared for it and only a few managed to pass the test. The class was an easy 'A' which I think an AP class should never be. An AP class should prepare the students that are in it for a college workload and should be more effective in teaching the subject than a regular U.S. history class is.

By the end of the school year I came to view Ms. Wells as a lazy teacher who didn't know enough about history to actually teach it herself. While I appreciate what the easy A did for my GPA, I don't appreciate feeling like I didn't learn anything in the class or feeling like the class didn't actually prepare me for college. I found myself looking back on the class with disdain especially the textbook. Anyone who has had to read "The American Pageant" can tell you that the lay out of the book is highly confusing and it is hard to find the information you need. One aspect of an event may be in one section of a chapter and then everything else about the event will be in another chapter. The book seems very disjointed and it is confusing to read.

Not all textbooks are well written,and often textbooks for high school don't use primary or secondary sources. An example of a primary source for history is something that was written during a specific time period (like a letter from the Civil War era or a carving from the early years of the Roman Republic). A secondary source is something written (like an analysis) of a primary source. Most textbooks use sources that are writings/analysis of the secondary sources. And I have even seen high school textbooks that have no bibliography of sources. This causes a double problem for students that have teachers that teach solely by the book. Not only is the student having to learn solely from a textbook, but they also have to deal with a textbook that may be confusing to read or may present inaccurate information.

Another issue with teaching by the book is when teachers have the students read the chapter out loud. Often teachers will force all of the students to read at least a paragraph out loud with out considering that the student may have problems that cause them to have problems with reading out loud. These problems may be a simple as confidence issues or they could be as serious as a speech impediment/disorder or a learning disability which messes with the student's ability to read out loud. Reading out loud can also be a tool used by bullies (both student bullies and teacher bullies) to humiliate students. When having students read out loud, teachers will often have the students "popcorn" read where after a student finishes reading a paragraph they pick which student will read next. If there is a student who has a problem reading out loud bullies may purposefully choose that student to read after them so that they can publicly mock the student's problems with reading out loud. I have been on the receiving end of this type of bullying because of my speech impediment which use to cause me to mispronounce words easily. I would stumble over words and take long pauses so I could calm down and pronounce the words properly. Teachers (who knew about my speech impediment) would lose patience with me and yell and me to hurry up. I have seen students with dyslexia be called stupid by both teachers and other students because they were unable to read out loud. If a student is uncomfortable with reading out loud, a teacher should talk with that student (after class and not in front of any other students) about why the student is uncomfortable with reading out loud and see if there is anything that can be done to help the student feel more comfortable with reading out loud or figure out a way for the students to go over the information in the chapter with out reading the chapter out loud.

In short: Teachers should know the subject they are teaching well enough to lecture on it and not rely completely on using the textbook to teach.

The full list of negative teaching traits I will be talking about

Well I am way behind in my negative teaching blog series, and since I am so behind I decided to post the list of teaching traits/styles I will be talking about in a negative manner.

1. Lack of enthusiasm (complete)
2. Teaching strictly by the book
3. Talking down to students
4. Using only one teaching style and never changing it
5. Not telling/teaching a student how to improve
6. Not taking advice from other teachers
7. Ignoring a student's needs (especially if the student has a learning disorder)
8. Insisting on perfection or having unrealistic expectations
9. Over/under punishing students

I am hoping to get back to work on this blog series ASAP.

Negative Teaching Blog #1

When I am packing my mind tends to wonder and today while I was packing my clothes I started to think about all of the bad teachers I have had through out the years. While thinking about them I focused in on why they were bad teachers and noticed that a lot of bad teachers have similar personality traits or teaching styles. I decided to compile a list of these traits/teaching styles and point out why these are bad for teachers to have. Each week I will write a blog about a specific trait that I think teachers from Pre-K through university professors shouldn't have. After I finish this list I will to a contrasting list talking about traits I think teachers should have.


1. Lack of enthusiasm about teaching/the subject

This is an issue that I have seen with quite of few teachers I have had and even with some education students I know. An example of a teacher that has no enthusiasm for teaching is one who considers teaching a chore, seems bored while teaching, seems uninterested in teaching in general or teaching a specific subject. Unenthusiastic teachers are easily identified since they often seemed annoyed with students and even other teachers for no easily placed reason. These are often people who considered teaching an easy profession so instead of following their actual dream they decided to pursue a seemingly easy career. Their annoyance comes from their inability to accept that teaching is a full-time job that is a lot more difficult than they expected. Even though teachers get a two month vacation during the summer, several teachers are required to go to teaching conferences during the summer, teach summer school, or find a part-time job for the summer if they don't do the first two.

There are also teachers that have no interest in teaching a subject, but they decided to get certified to teach it because they perceived it to be an easy subject. I see this the most in elementary school teachers who prefer teaching one subject (such as math) to teaching another subject (such as history). That teacher may be really enthusiastic about teaching mathematics, but once that teacher starts talking about history that enthusiasm goes away and they begin to seem bored and uninterested.

I know an education major (whom I shall refer to as A) who shall face the problem of lack of enthusiasm. When I asked A why she wanted to be a teacher she basically said that she only wanted to be a teacher because her mom is a teacher. It wasn't because A personally wanted to become a teacher, she just wanted to do the same thing that her mom does. A's major problem is that she wants to be an early education major meaning she would have to teach all subjects to students in K-4th grade. The problem with this is that A does not care about subjects aside from math. She shows little to no interests in subjects such as history, science, and etc. I even recommended to A that she should change her degree plan to the math secondary certification degree (Angelo State University actually offers a teacher certification degree for nearly every subject) and she said that she didn't want to do that because that isn't what her mother does.

A person shouldn't want a career just because that is the career that one of their parents has. A person can want the same career as their parent, but the fact that their parent has that job should never be the only reason a person wants that job. A person should want the career that they themselves want. I don't want to be a college professor like my dad or a bookstore manager like my mom. I want to be a secondary social studies teacher and I will fight tooth and nail for that job. In all honesty I pity A's future students because teachers that are unenthusiastic tend to teach purely by the textbook the second trait which I shall talk about next week.

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http://meghanjh91.tumblr.com/

Taking a shot at the Cullens' back-stories

Well I am finally starting on it. My own mini-series that is taking a shot at the Twilight characters' back-stories (specifically Carlisle's, Rosalie's, Edward's, Alice's, and Jasper's). A major annoyance of mine that deals with the Twilight series is the large amount of historical inaccuracies that occur in both the books and the back stories of the characters. I will write about the characters in the order that they were born (so Carlisle first, then Jasper, then Edward and Alice, and finally Rosalie). I will be pointing out what is historically inaccurate with each of those character's back-stories based on my own research into European and American history. Each essay will follow a similar layout which is explained below.

1. I will give a brief summary on the character's original back-story.

2. I will break down each part of the back story and talk about each historical inaccuracy that I notice. These inaccuracies will include everything from fashion, slang, ideologies, religious beliefs, and so on and so forth.

3. I will explain how the inaccuracies I find create more plot holes and weaken the Cullens even more as characters.

4. Finally I will present a picture of how I think the character would look if their back-stories were historically accurate and explain how if some of the historical inaccuracies were fixed that some of the Cullens' could've been stronger characters.

I am just starting on Carlisle, and I will be honest, Carlisle's and Rosalie's will be the longest due to the extraordinary number of historical inaccuracies in the back stories of those two characters.

Research, research, oh how I love to research

Those of you who know me IRL know how much I like to research random stuff and currently I am working on researching two things. The first research project I am working on is researching my great-grandmother Margaret "Maggie" Smith. This project will probably be put off until the summer though so that I will be able to go to the Big Bend National Park and do some research there. My other research project is about teaching history. I figured since that is what I am planning on teaching, I might as well get started on researching different teaching methods and philosophies about history. I will be focusing more on researching how to teach history this semester since that is honestly easier research than looking up information on my great-grandmother.

I nearly had a happy attack today when I went into ASU's library and found about 20 books on teaching history and social studies. Some of the ones I found are pretty interesting, but a lot of them were really boring and uninteresting. One that I really heavily disliked seemed like the author was talking down to the reader, but the one I liked the best seemed like he was being open and friendly with the reader (plus he wrote a lot of awesome quotes about history). I am gonna check out a few of the books that I really enjoyed and sit down with a notebook and write down all of the tips that I really like and think are useful, and I will probably list them in a later blog. *happy dance* This is gonna be so much fun!

And yes, I know I am a dork for getting all excited about researching. >>

Spring Break

Well as planned I haven't had a really eventful spring break, I mostly have spent it hanging around the house with my boyfriend watching TV and stuff like that. My knee is feeling a little better, but it still hurts quite a bit. I have to go with my boyfriend tomorrow on a six hour drive to pick my siblings up from my dad's, but I plan to be riding in the back seat the whole drive with my knee propped up and iced properly. I am actually glad that I have gotten a good bit of homework done this week. All that is left is to read some short stories for my English class and to read a couple books for my comparative history class.

A couple things I learned this week

- My boyfriend is a sweetie, since I can't bend my knee properly to shave my legs myself he helped me shave them (while I was wearing a pair of shorts)

- My family can't just let an abandoned dog be alone. We rescued a little black scottie this week that I have dubbed Toto.

- I get headaches easily for some reason, especially when my knee is hurting.