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- Creating the Spark for our Student's Learning
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I would be interested in discussing techniques of inspiration and cultivating curiosity in more detail. There are a number of things I do in my classroom that are geared to hook the students. We read texts that sparkle and speak to the lives of our students. I share the stories of successful playwrights and the myriad ways they approach their craft. We attend performances.
That said, I wonder if the process of inspiration can occur at any point in Musallman’s 3-step process. To put it another way, does inspiration have to be the only way we hook our students or make them curious? On Thursday (first class of the semester — such an important moment!), I was working it — using all the tools available to attract the students in my Writing Intensive course to the subject matter, readings, and work ahead. I said, “By the end of the semester, I hope that each of you will have an essay that you consider the best piece you’ve ever written.” I went on to say that their writing will continue to evolve and improve long after the course is over, but they might look back at this moment as a time they felt inspired, energized, and very happy about the work they produced. A major stepping stone.
I don’t know how many of my students were convinced. For some students, the goals I laid out will not be reached. For a handful of students the goals might not even be obtainable. Work, family, economics, and myriad forces will attempt to intervene. Other students may have heard this rallying cry before and have decided ahead of time that they are destined to fail (because of past failed attempts, deeply held, erroneous beliefs in their own inadequacy, distrust in institutions of learning the U.S., etc.). For these students, inspiration may not be the hook. Perhaps they will be motivated by grades or simply understand that in order to get through the course they will need to force themselves into uncomfortable areas. For these students, inspiration might come at the end of the course when they complete the final project after agonizing through first drafts that didn’t come easy and felt fruitless. Inspiration might even come the following semester when they are given a writing assignment in another course and they realize that some of the methods they learned in Play Analysis can be reapplied. Then they can draw on resources of confidence and production they built themselves, without the Henry V speech at Agincourt the first day of classes. (Act V, scene iii: http://shakespeare.mit.edu/henryv/henryv.4.3.html)
A remarkable human trait is our ability to see ourselves in others.. if we are taking the time to be inspiring it should be an action that we are modeling, supporting and encouraging..
Like all things, we have to be sustainable in our inspiration. Which is to say, to personally inspire every student even just once a term could be a very hard road; a road we must travel. While traveling this road we must support and create a climate of inspiration.
By a climate of inspiration, I mean insuring that the environment of our classrooms, and the content of our syllabi, etc. encourages multiple “acts of inspiration” from all sources.
Can our students inspire themselves? each other? Can we find non-academic voices that inspire (i.e., Starbuck’s Schultz growing up in a NYC housing project — could that inspire a student?)
HI ALL!
I’ve been getting the posts from this discussion to my email. I’m not sure why but I’ve decided to comment on it!
My name is Phillip Mitchell and I’m a former City Tech student.(On my résumé I put City University of New York) Though I can’t possibly speak for all, I think students on their own have to want to learn and be inspired. In terms of City Tech’s body of students, most of us grow up in areas where our environment(projects) tells us all that we got going for us is whats around us (which isn’t much).
I remember starting college and being the worst student. I always slept in class, did no homework and walked around thinking the world spun without me (not around me). This is what a person such as myself, an African American boy raised in the projects with one family member ever graduating college, thought. Again, this is just one input.
I have had several talks with professors who cared enough to have the “you’re better than you know”, “if you know your good, why be good when you can be better” and “what the hell’s wrong with you” talk with me. Though I didn’t take their advice at the time and I still continued the same way, when I finally realized that I wanted to spin with the world rather than without and that I wanted to have an amazing career, voice, and to retire with a family and not put them through the hell I grew up in those talks that I’ve had with professors is what fueled me. Even though I’m not in college anymore it still fuels me.
It doesn’t take a one on one with students to get through. They listen to everything you say (unless they are asleep). I think they just have to see what they could have.
I can only speak for myself. My inspiration was being forced out of my comfort zone and realizing the world outside of my environment. I think thats a good start for many students. To inspire every student you ever meet is probably the touch of the PERFECT teacher. It’s almost impossible to do that though. Good luck!
P.S. I also had a curiosity to know more about the world. I pretty much became a four year old asking why again.
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