Day 118: The Praxis of Pedagogy

I started off 1st period with assigned seats. I was surprised because there wasn't really much grumbling about it. Then we had SSR. In 2nd and 3rd period, I made seating charts while they read. I should have done the seating chart earlier, but would-of-could-of-should-of. We'll see how the spots work. When reading was done, I told them about Missing work makeup day and auction on Friday. I'm going to auction off participation points. It's a little cycle where they get the points by participating, but they can also buy points if they bid against others. After that, I had students hand back graded work and I handed back exams with comments on the metacognitive questions I had them write on. I'm trying to get some of them to think about why there is a disparity between what they thought they were going to get with their metacognitive plan of action and what they actually got. Then I handed out calendars and had them fill out information on the calendar. This all should have been done in the beginning of the quarter, but I'll do that next time.

In 1st period, I started off with briefly having a student review the scramble for furniture exercise and then I broke them into pairs and we went over a worksheet on the motives for imperialism. There were 5 motives given and they were to design a visual symbol for it. Then I handed out placards where they describe what they see, motives, and why they chose that motive. The placards are imperialist pictures and propaganda and it's about deciphering what they see. This took a while to explain but I went around and checked students' work out and they seem to be doing ok. I'm continuing and hopefully finishing this tomorrow.

In 2nd period, we read "Things Fall Apart" while working on bookmarks. I'm getting them to buy into the idea of using the bookmark by saying that they might be able to use it on a test if I were to give one to them. Might just maybe.

In 3rd period, we reviewed the survivor game and students defined autocracy, oligarchy, and democracy again. Next, I made a chart listing the advantages and disadvantages of democracy. From there I showed an overhead timeline of democracy. Greeks had democracy in 500 B.C.E. and the Europeans don't come back to it until the 1700s. What a huge break. What kind of continuity is that? The Magna Carta limited power and there was a model parliament in 1295, but nothing really close to a democracy. How can we even talk about an evolution of Democracy. It was more of a regression and return back to democracy. Anyways... there assignment is that we are going to enact a press conference with historical figures to discuss the ideas about the ideal form of government. That press conference will take place Friday. I gave them different historical figures and told them the major press conference questions. "What is the ideal form of government? Why? Can people be trusted to govern?" What's interesting is the implicit assumption that government is necessary. I think after this I would like to discuss a bit of anarchy theory and the question of whether or not government is necessary at all.