Appleman Chapter 7

I really enjoyed this chapter about Martha, mainly because instead of taking one subject for many pages and using many quotes from students, we got to hear about a number of important subjects directly from a teacher who's been through it. It's really encouraging to hear about how things can change in the classroom, and I'm particularly struck by the quote at the end of the chapter:

"As Freire (1971) has suggested, [teachers] are "knowing subjects," constantly learning from the process of teaching. Here we take the more radical position that learning from teaching ought to be regarded as the primary task of teacher education across the professional life span. By "learning from teaching" we mean that inquiry ought to be regarded as an integral part of the activity of teaching and as a critical basis for decisions about practice."

I know for a fact that when I start my student teaching that I'm going to be lousy at it, I'll be struggling to move beyond simply doing the kinds of presentations that I've been doing for my classmates for the past 15 years or so, and I know it's going to be a rough trip. But there's proof out there that things improve, that as we teach we learn, and I think that's one of the most important things. I know I've mentioned this before, but I was also really worried about what kind of actual material I would be teaching in my classroom because I've had trouble actually coming up with things to say in my unit plans in the past, and I think this book has helped me with that more than anything else. Not only does it give you things to say, it gives you ways to say it, and I think I feel much more comfortable now about teaching literature in the classroom.

It's an unfortunate thing, but I am skeptical that the majority of teachers actually follow the same path of self-discovery that Martha and Appleman did, I'm sure that there are a great number out there that are still teaching the same things they taught their first year. It's an important point to make because one of the main things that I got from reading about Martha is that she must have been ridiculously busy, she had to work hard for this, and we'll have to work hard too. Change and improvement don't come easy, but I think it's worth it.