Saturday, I Miss You

I'm taking a class this spring for my Masters of Curriculum and Instruction. It meets over the course of five Saturdays, the first of which was this weekend.

 

I'm lucky enough to be taking the class with four other teachers that I work with, so that made it a bit more bearable. I generally like going to class and learning new stuff, but I'm finding that it's easier to like that kinda stuff when it's in the summer and I don't have lots of Other Stuff going on to distract me. You know, like teaching...

 

Anyways, there have been a lot of complaints about this particular professor (let's call her Judy) because she assigns so ... much ... work. And, as teachers, we feel it is our indisputable right to be spoon fed and coddled when it comes to higher education simply because we are required to continue our education if we want to keep our teaching certificate. See? So it's only fair: if you're making me do this, then you had better be making it easy!!

 

So as much as people complain about Judy, I rather think she's ingenius. Instead of teaching us every Saturday, she's divided us into groups and given each group an article to read, summarize, and present to the class (complete with assessment activity). Brilliant! We all learn, and she doesn't have to teach! She also seems big into group work and presentations and projects. This may be fine for some people, but personally? I would just rather you lecture for four hours, and give me a test. Tell me what to memorize and I'll regurgitate it perfectly later, you will be so impressed.

 

But no....