Log6.2: On Pedagogy

Much has happened since my last update two weeks ago. The following is the second of a six-part series.  

This is Part 2: On Pedagogy

Two weeks ago in "Log5," I described my excitement and anticipation for my first ever classroom teaching experience.  Two weeks have gone, and I have now taught three full classes on different topics.  This entry is about those experiences.

"Camp Fulbright" hosted the top elementary, middle, and young high school students to a two-week English immersion camp.  The camp provided a space for not only these young students to learn, but also us to practice teaching, many of us for the first time.  Each day of camp had a certain academic/non-academic theme; I taught on the days of music, literature, and social studies, in that order.

This is the way the show ran: I taught a 50-minute class, my co-teacher teaches a 50-minute class, and we both get feedback from a host teacher who observed and gave us feedback in private.


Lesson 1: "My Girl can Rhyme" (Music)

I opened with a short introduction, during which the twelve middle school students displayed an indistinguishable reaction of surprise, elation, and disappointment at the sign of my name which is as American as the USSR was in the 1970's and as emblematically Korean as kim-chi.  This reaction, I think, would not prove insignificant.


I told the students that 'My Girl' was from 1964, and they "ooh"-ed and "ah"-ed in ways that made me feel, perhaps for the first time, like someone behind the times.  Nevertheless, they loved the song.  We played 'Telephone' with each of the three teams of four relaying one line from the song to each other.  The game proved much more successful than it might have seemed.


So we went over the vocabulary words then proceeded to listen to the rhyme schemes.  Afterward I asked them to work in groups and partners to come up with their own rhymes, but the worksheet proved far too difficult.  That, or I just didn't set it up well enough, and the activity rather tanked.  Some students "got it," but many were left behind.  50 minutes passed, and John was up next: a Paul Buyan-esque, red-headed Viking-like 6'3" Southerner from Georgia. 

I remember getting down on myself after seeing how well John did; he nailed it.  His subsequent lessons all proved to be wonderful successes despite his lack of teaching experience.  I guess he was made for this job.

I don't want to undermine his fantastic presence and incredible execution of the lessons, but I did also feel that in a nation so easily enraptured by the apparent and so quickly seduced by the aesthetic (by this I mean the hyper-sensitivity to body image and the extreme cosmopolitanism), a Viking-esque man who would stick out like a sore thumb even in America would surely command more attention from the audience than an explicitly Korean man when given the same stage; he's different, SO different.  


I know I know, everyone has different ways of teaching, no two people have the same learning curves, each person has his/her strengths, etc.  I'm certainly not attributing pedagogical differences to our different ethnicity, of course not, but I am simply willing to ponder what influences this transparent subtlety may have on the students' learning.


In any case, the teacher thought it went pretty well and pointed to classroom management and conclusion of class times as a couple of things I could work on.


Lesson 2: "A Little Alliteration" (Literature)

After looking at the texts I brought with me from the states(DFW's Consider the Lobster or Alex Haley's Autobiography of Malcolm X), I realized that the same group of students would not be ready for such a deep discussion.  So after some thought, I thought alliteration would work well.  And it worked wonderfully...sort of.


To start off class, I recited to them the "V" monologue from V for Vendetta.  This hooked them in quite quickly, since my recitation of the monologue was imbued with my inner desire to perform it.  They quickly picked up on the theme, and we dove into tongue twisters.


First we played Tongue Twister games; three teams of four race to see which one can first complete the 'Peter Piper' tongue twister perfectly, with each member reciting one line from the verse.  That went over well, and they were really very good.


Then we played another game called "Dialogue."  This timed class activity entails each person to read one line from a whole passage.  The catch is that each knows only the line he/she must speak, and the line that precedes it.  Each student must hence listen to their classmates and speak their line in turn.* 

*SAMPLE SLIP: "When you hear: Bobby Bippy bought a bat/Read aloud: Bobby Bippy bought a ball."


This became a huge success, and after each round the students wanted to better their times.  The first time took 2 minutes, the second time took 50 seconds.  Then they imposed a "30second challenge" on themselves to try to say the 12-line passage under 30 seconds.  


They completed it in 27 seconds. The class erupted as if Korea had won the World Cup.


So they got the idea, and I shared with them how such alliteration can be used in poems.  I used Nothing Gold Can Stay by Robert Frost, then gave them Shel Silverstein's Sarah Cynthia Sylvia Stout Would Not Take the Garbage Out as a worksheet.  

The games sapped their energies and the worksheet proved too long.  

Overall though I walked out feeling much better about my teaching skills.  The CI (mentor) had many great things to say, reassuring me that many of the kids were just so sleep-deprived and tired that their lack of energy after the game was not my fault.  I will cut myself some slack and say these kids had a ridiculous schedule.


Lesson 3: "Gender and Racial Stereotypes" (Social Studies)


By far the most ambitious, but also the most successful of my three lessons, I walked out this lesson feeling great.*  I had my doubts placated once my mentor told me that my lesson was "one of the best lesson plans executed for student-centered learning."  I couldn't help but say back to her "Holy sh%#, thank you wow, sorry for my French." Needless to say, I was floored.


*This was a whole different class, by the way; new students, new mentor.  This was the first and last time I would teach this group of students.


Okay, Academy Awards aside, personal thanks to Nick for helping and inspiring me to make this plan work.  I wrote him an e-mail asking him to "brief" me on some of the issues and draw from his pedagogical experience, and he went overboard and out of his way to help me.  


I start with the riddle about a boy who gets in a car accident with his father, goes to the hospital and is seen by the doctor who says, "I cannot operate on my son."  The riddle questions how the dead father can suddenly be the doctor, but reveals the general prejudice that doctors are male and cannot be the mother of the son.  I don't tell the end of the riddle until the end of class.


I play two-truths-and-a-lie about myself after my self-introduction.  This is to get them to start thinking about racial/ethnic stereotypes.  1) I was born in Korea (True; a few thought it was a lie); 2) I was a speed skater (True; almost all thought it was a lie) 3) I have an "American" name (False; only two guessed correctly that this was the lie--ie everyone else assumed I had a stereotypically American name).  When I wrote my name up on the board, it was interesting to see their reactions; quite contrary to the first class I taught.


I then played the Agree/Disagree exercise; go to one side of the room if you agree with a statement, and the other side if you disagree.  

We are in the USA. Obvious; all disagreed.  

This tie is blue. Obvious; all agreed.

Men are stronger than women.  All women disagreed; all men agreed (FASCINATING, NO?!)


Women are better cooks than men.  Two women agreed; all others disagreed.


Then we just brainstormed on the board; things about men, then things about women.  Then the class split into teams of four and rotated around poster stations where they would do the same about other racial categories: Indians, White Americans, African Americans, and Koreans.  Then we debriefed.


These students were not typical Korean students, for they were, as the coordinators told us, the best and the brightest.  Their awareness of these stereotypes was impressive; one student saw that "poor" was written by the African American bubble, and reacted to write a 'nullifying' "rich" next to it.  


Still, the exercise proved rich with ideas and concepts.  The students were engaged and engrossed by the activity, visibly grappling and struggling with the adjectives and nouns that arose in their heads.  The clearest example was the lack of words and descriptions given to Indians (of continental Asia) versus those given to Koreans; the sheer quantity of bubbles was incomparable.  And I pointed that out to them.  And as I walked around the classroom to share with the students what they all had come up with collectively, I was astounded by the number of pairs of eyes that followed me intently.  Clearly, they had taken some interest to what I had to say, and the conclusions that we 


I finally concluded with the vocabulary word of the day, which was "stereotype."  I tied it back to the riddle, the two-truths-and-a-lie, and finished with a story about Jeremy Lin, a friend from Palo Alto with whom I went to elementary and middle schools and who after graduating from Harvard this year is now drafted by the Golden State Warriors.  He is Taiwanese, and is right now hanging out with Yao Ming for his foundation.



My objective for this lesson was for the students to simply think about these issues and raise questions in their head.  And by the focus they had for those 50minutes, the tremendous attention they gave me, and the warmth of their applause at the end of class, I could not help but walk out feeling great.  I would have been happy to have had even one student walk out of class and think about these issues for even just 2 seconds, but by the way that lesson went I think I can safely say--without intended conceit or arrogance--that I accomplished this goal.

I was stunned by just how many good things my mentor had to say.  She did mention that I could do more with positive reinforcement and perhaps tone down my serious persona, but she said that semi-facetiously.  I intended the class to have a more serious tone, so I'm glad I communicated that.

Conclusions and Thoughts

Teaching was draining and incredibly tiring.  From brainstorming lesson plans to creating the lessons to preparing for the lesson and actually enacting the lessons, I gained a tremendous appreciation and renewed respect for teachers past, present and future, and especially for those who shaped me in ways undefinable and indescribable.  


More to come.