English 345: Tuesday, September 6

"It has been suggested that there is no substantial difference between common sense and theory, particularly in the field of education," a quotation that seems to get at the heart of chapters one and two (Kumaravadivelu 17). In the first few weeks of class, we have come to problematize various words often used in teaching, including method, task, and the aforementioned word, theory. Likely throughout our own education classes and our experience in the classrooms, these words have been brought up, as well... often as things that some educators appear to willingly accept simply because some "higher up" told them to.

When I was student teaching, I had to do daily phonics drills each day to help the "remedial" English class of high school freshmen read English better. These drills came out of a book called "Rewards," a pretty self-gratifying name for a book I suppose now, and were extremely monotous. The methods used mostly consisted of me saying something, the students repeating, and so on and so on. Most of the class were ESL students, and they seemed to get it (although I could never be sure that anyone was actually saying anything)

Then, I did not think much of it except for the fact that it was really boring. Now, I would wonder about a few things, namely:  How is it a good idea use a blanket method for all students? Sure, they all improved some, but could they improve much more with a diverse approach? Finally, how would using some of my "common sense" discussed in the chapters have changed my thoughts on this method?

Ideally, I would look for more bottom-up processes that start with the teacher, "generate location-specific, classroom-oriented innovative strategies" (33). This use of diversity in lessons makes "common sense" to me. However, the crux of my situation was that I really had no choice. I was just a student teacher given a bunch of lessons that the administration wanted me to try. The situation would also have been no different if my coordinating teacher had been in charge then. The administration continued to search for that one no-fail method that would work for all of the children.