Day 78 & 79: The Praxis of Pedagogy

So Monday 1st period I talked about the French Revolution. I have to coach them every single time to take Cornell Notes. Get out your Cornell Notes, write some shit down. But I told them about tipping the executioner back in the day so that he'd make a clean hit. But the guillotine made everything all scientific and shit. You could kill fast and clean. The big question that I think that you can learn from the French Revolution is what to do after you have the Revolution. People just went buck wild. Throwing off the king and then into a killing orgy. After talking about the French Revolution then I gave out the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and assigned them to read it and write a 1 1/2 pg. I know that it's an UN document but it was inspired by the Declaration of the Rights of Man and the US constitution. THose of course being inspired by all that Enlightenment shite. After that I gave them time to work on their subvertisement.

In second period, I had people get together in their chapter groups from "Disposable People" and they summarized that chapter. I did the jigsaw with "War is a racket" and this turned out just as well. So many didn't read the chapters they had to read. So it was people in groups copying notes off the person or two that did read the chapter. Then after 25 minutes I had them get back into their original groups and explain the chapters to their fellow students. We ended on this.

In third period, I put the test off to give them a study guide that I had made. I didn't do that on Friday even though I talked about answers. Then we went over the study guide and I gave them a notecard and told them they could write the answers on the notes but everything had to be 3 times. Then subvertising for them.

So today... in first period while they did a 1 pg journal write to the quote, "The weak can never forgive. Forgiveness is an attribute of the strong." (Gandhi) I checked homework. 3 people did it. 3. Three. 1-2-3. Out of 20. 15%. So I gave out a lot of fours on contracts and had a bunch of people bring it to me afterschool to get three hours back and only get one hour makeup. Then I wanted to discuss "Things Fall Apart" with them. Zero people finished it. 0. The goose egg. The great void. Nothingness. The essence of the Dao. Very hard to talk about when that happens. So I had them take notes while I explained things with limited student interaction. This is a fascinating story about Constantinian Christianity affecting native cultures. I'm having my friend and Native American office manager talk about Christianity and Native American cultures on Thursday. At the end I had them work on subvertisements.

In 2nd period, I had them work on "Disposable People" in groups and then on their subvertisement. Jigsaw never again. So you learn.

In 3rd period, I gave out the test and then worked on subvertisements. I have this one Asian American student that was complaining that my class was the only one that he was failing. His cousin was in the class and said that it was a shame that he was failing that class. She questioned how he could be related. I laughed hard at that. As did the class. I think he needed some social embarassment. He's always talking about it in class so he kind of got what he deserved. If you don't want people to know... don't bring it up out loud. I also got a list of students that want to go and see a ballet folklorico about the Dia De Los Muertos.

My CTM is getting too loose. But I have the situation now where students don't want to do hours with me cause they know that I'll make them work. They all want to go to other classes so they can fuck around. This is a good thing in my eyes. I want them to know that I'll make them work. They won't fail cause I don't have high expectations for them.