Class discussions

Usually when I read through pieces like this for classes, I take what the author has to say as truth because they are the author and I'm the student. The author has, I assume, put a lot of work into studying what they are writing about and I've just begun my studies on teaching. However, in this article, I found there were some things I agreed with and some I did not. I really liked the idea of putting more student discussions in the classroom. As pointed out in the Almasi article, the students start taking on some of the traditional teacher roles. I always hear teachers complain that they have too much to do and not enough time to get it done; class discussions not only take some of the stress off the teacher because the students are discovering things for themselves, but also the topics covered have more meaning for the students because the ideas are expressed in their own words. This would also help students to make a stronger link to prior knowledge so the new material covered is more likely to last past the test. As stressed in the Golsdenberg article, the teacher's role in class discussions is of course very important, but more student involvement in their own learning is always a good thing, in my opinion. (This goes without saying I often think teachers make students put too much work into a particlular task rather than in the actual learning part of a lesson, but this can of course be avoided by being open to new ways of doing things and having clear goals for the lesson.) Classroom discussions have a very constructivist way of looking at students, and this way I believe innately gives more respect and responsibility to students. What I did not agree with as much was the way Langer broke down looking at literature. I don't think this is a helpful way for me to look at literature as I feel it's too confining. I'm all for looking at text in multiple ways- I was an English major before I became a Special Education major- but I thought the labels were too technical and sucked the fun out of getting involved with a text. I really think that breaking down the best ways to get involved with text rather than just stressing that it's just good to dive into reading ruins loving literature for a lot of kids and turns them off. When I teach, I really hope that I can make students love to read and see personal value in reading, and whatever way they can find to get to that point is a good thing. I'm of the opinion that there's not enough stress of the value in reading being fun. The teacher needs to let the kids have fun with reading in their own way and show them different ways they can go about doing that in a way that is personally rewarding. Come up with labels if you will, but thinking in this way will probably be a kill joy.