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The Edible Educator
Posted by Lisa
on
2:28 PM
I recently started teaching Margaret Atwood's novel The Edible Woman which has been a challenging endeavor. I'm a passive fan of Atwood's works, in that I've enjoyed the books and poetry of hers that I've read, but at the same time I haven't really been moved enough to seek out any other works. So I was excited by the opportunity to work with a new text; new, at least, from my perspective, as the novel itself is from the mid-1960's.
Personally I really enjoyed the novel. Atwood proves to be quite skilled at creating dynamic, interesting and yet at the same time somewhat symbolic characters. Her use of language is engaging and her attention to detail is exquisite. What I find most fascinating is the way she captures the essence of humanity through our own contradictions. No one is ever consistently the same. Even the most predictable of people can act out of character. It's is these contradictions that not only make us interesting, but make us human.
The challenge I face now is, how do I make these kids care? Trying to prepare lessons for this novel has led me to contemplate the constant struggle I find myself going through, which is how do you engage an audience that only sees your class as a stepping stone to other endeavours?
Don't get me wrong, I am not idealistic or naive. I know that, no matter what I do, not every kid is going to love books. But recently I feel frustrated by the feeling that I'm not engaging anyone. And the problem I'm running into the most? The students just aren't doing the reading. It doesn't matter what kind of activities, handouts, assignments, media extensions, cross-curricular connections or societal comparisons I make; if the students don't do the reading they aren't going to be engaged.
I know a lot of people would tell me the problem is with the literature we study. To be fair, I can see how some of it wouldn't necessarily be engaging to a teen-aged audience. But does it mean we shouldn't study classic works of literature just because students don't think they're interesting? To me that's on par with saying we should remove algebra from the math courses because some kids don't find it interesting. If we left course design up to them we'd be watching movies, surfing the net and sending text messages all day.
The reality of the situation is, a great majority of students these days have no work ethic. Couple that with no understanding of the concept that actions have consequences and no experience with taking ownership over the decisions they make and students today are a difficult bunch to engage. Throw in the fact that despite all of that they still expect to get a mark above 80% and you're pretty much screwed.
The problem, as far as I can see it, is that education has ceased to be about learning. Every year it feels like I see fewer and fewer students that are truly interested in actually learning something. The average student now sees education as more of an exchange of currency for goods, with their time being the currency and marks being the goods. Accordingly, they believe the more time they invest in the class, the better mark they should receive.
And truly when you get down to it, every thing is ultimately about the mark. At one point, marks were used to measure what you had learned in a course. Now it seems that, along with so many other things in society, they are something to which people feel entitled. I can't tell you how many times a student has said to me "Miss, you have to give me at least an 80 in this class..." or "I won't accept anything under 85 in this course." And when they don't get what they want they don't see it as an opportunity to learn, or to improve. I offer extra help. I am willing to stay after school and assist with essays, presentations, review diffuclt concepts, look over rough drafts or anything else a student might want help with. But they aren't interested in giving up their free time.
So what do you do? Do you just keep plodding along, knowing 90% of them haven't done the required reading? It's the easiest choice, because it keeps things pretty simple. It's easy to say to yourself, "They chose not to do the reading, so these are the consequences of that choice." But when you truly love the work you're studying and you honestly believe your job is to teach them not what to think, but how to think for themselves, just accepting the status quo isn't acceptable.
I really don't know what to do. I find myself frequently considering a career change. I love what I do, but I'm really starting to feel like the time for teachers who actually want to teach is coming to an end and I really don't know how to be anyone other than who I am.
So like Marian McAlpin, I feel I'm experiencing a loss of identity. I can identify with her as being an "edible woman" because I too feel like I'm being consumed by the society around me. So do I "adjust to the situation" as Marian would? Or do I bake a cake in the shape of a teacher and feed it to the students?
I'll keep you posted...
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Personally I really enjoyed the novel. Atwood proves to be quite skilled at creating dynamic, interesting and yet at the same time somewhat symbolic characters. Her use of language is engaging and her attention to detail is exquisite. What I find most fascinating is the way she captures the essence of humanity through our own contradictions. No one is ever consistently the same. Even the most predictable of people can act out of character. It's is these contradictions that not only make us interesting, but make us human.
The challenge I face now is, how do I make these kids care? Trying to prepare lessons for this novel has led me to contemplate the constant struggle I find myself going through, which is how do you engage an audience that only sees your class as a stepping stone to other endeavours?
Don't get me wrong, I am not idealistic or naive. I know that, no matter what I do, not every kid is going to love books. But recently I feel frustrated by the feeling that I'm not engaging anyone. And the problem I'm running into the most? The students just aren't doing the reading. It doesn't matter what kind of activities, handouts, assignments, media extensions, cross-curricular connections or societal comparisons I make; if the students don't do the reading they aren't going to be engaged.
I know a lot of people would tell me the problem is with the literature we study. To be fair, I can see how some of it wouldn't necessarily be engaging to a teen-aged audience. But does it mean we shouldn't study classic works of literature just because students don't think they're interesting? To me that's on par with saying we should remove algebra from the math courses because some kids don't find it interesting. If we left course design up to them we'd be watching movies, surfing the net and sending text messages all day.
The reality of the situation is, a great majority of students these days have no work ethic. Couple that with no understanding of the concept that actions have consequences and no experience with taking ownership over the decisions they make and students today are a difficult bunch to engage. Throw in the fact that despite all of that they still expect to get a mark above 80% and you're pretty much screwed.
The problem, as far as I can see it, is that education has ceased to be about learning. Every year it feels like I see fewer and fewer students that are truly interested in actually learning something. The average student now sees education as more of an exchange of currency for goods, with their time being the currency and marks being the goods. Accordingly, they believe the more time they invest in the class, the better mark they should receive.
And truly when you get down to it, every thing is ultimately about the mark. At one point, marks were used to measure what you had learned in a course. Now it seems that, along with so many other things in society, they are something to which people feel entitled. I can't tell you how many times a student has said to me "Miss, you have to give me at least an 80 in this class..." or "I won't accept anything under 85 in this course." And when they don't get what they want they don't see it as an opportunity to learn, or to improve. I offer extra help. I am willing to stay after school and assist with essays, presentations, review diffuclt concepts, look over rough drafts or anything else a student might want help with. But they aren't interested in giving up their free time.
So what do you do? Do you just keep plodding along, knowing 90% of them haven't done the required reading? It's the easiest choice, because it keeps things pretty simple. It's easy to say to yourself, "They chose not to do the reading, so these are the consequences of that choice." But when you truly love the work you're studying and you honestly believe your job is to teach them not what to think, but how to think for themselves, just accepting the status quo isn't acceptable.
I really don't know what to do. I find myself frequently considering a career change. I love what I do, but I'm really starting to feel like the time for teachers who actually want to teach is coming to an end and I really don't know how to be anyone other than who I am.
So like Marian McAlpin, I feel I'm experiencing a loss of identity. I can identify with her as being an "edible woman" because I too feel like I'm being consumed by the society around me. So do I "adjust to the situation" as Marian would? Or do I bake a cake in the shape of a teacher and feed it to the students?
I'll keep you posted...
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