Last week I had my first praxis placement at a public middle school in Philadelphia. My role is to participate in a weekly enrichment session for around a dozen students from fifth through eighth grade classes. I basically received the program/role from another Haverford student who has been developing and growing it over the past two years. Their focus has been, roughly, on discussing issues like civics and politics while working on building argumentation skills. My working goal for the semester in general is to work with this group of students who have already spent a lot of time learning about "leadership" and politics to think about how to build power and organize toward something as a group.

Originally, I was supposed to come and observe the class while another person led them in some kind of lesson/activity. It turned out that the person who was supposed to come couldn't make it and five minutes to ten I was told I'd be leading the class. "Oy," I thought to myself. I didn't have a lesson plan or any plan really. I had been excited to observe the students and the adult in the room to get a sense of how they functioned together, what the group dynamics were like, what kinds of things they were interested in. But I had to improvise--and it ended up being fine.

The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe swept me away with each read, immersing my childood imagination in enchanted lands full of talking creatures, magic, and a few kids just like me. I grew up engaging with this classic story, but I hadn’t realized just how important it may have been in cultivating curiosity about my very own ecological world. Narnia, while acting as a “ditch” for many readers like myself over the years, may have also been a “ditch” within the story itself for the four Pevensie children. The ecological thought presented in C.S. Lewis’s Chronicles of Narnia is complex and crucial to the plot—the environment almost acts as a character that grows and changes throughout the story. Through an interpretive reading of The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, the role of the environment in this classic tale can be further unpacked.

I’ve been in my placement this entire year at a special admit public high school in Philadelphia, which is great, as it has allowed me to watch and grow with the students in the two classes I work with. The school is highly-regarded, in Philadelphia and beyond, for its progressive, student-centered approach to teaching and learning. Specifically, I’ve been participating in two 9th grade African American history courses that have been covering an enormous amount of interesting material from present-day stereotypes of the African continent to the way cultural perceptions of race influenced and were influenced by laws relating to slavery to ways of making sense in and across societies.

This semester, my mentor teacher is using a special grant that she applied for and received to engage with her students in a special “Semester of Service.” The two classes are both in the process of learning, designing, and carrying out semester long service projects in the Philadelphia community and are striving to tie the work they do to Philadelphia history. I am extremely excited about this project because asset-based, meaningful service-learning is a big interest of mine and a great way, I think, for students to engage in conversations about race, class, privilege, and what it means to “help” people versus “collaborate and co-create” with them.

ECON 136:  Week 6 Tasks

Monday:  Taxing Market Outcomes

Preparing for class:

Read Taylor ch. 4, p. 71 (if unclear, read pp. 64-71) and pp, 74-81

Now watch this short video             http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2uMQfMVDYB0

Listen to the Planet Money podcast

http://www.npr.org/blogs/money/2014/02/07/273060341/episode-516-why-paying-192-for-a-5-mile-car-ride-may-be-rational

As you do so, try to visualize the shifts in supply and demand that motivate Uber’s strategy

Before you retire Tuesday night (or by 3am  Wednesday)

            Complete the Taxing Market Outcomes problem set in Sapling Learnin

Wednesday:  Midterm Review        

            Preparing for Class

http://iwastesomuchtime.com/on/?i=87801

Besides the fact that I really enjoyed reading the dialogue that Shor and Freire had, I felt that the idea of implementing a ‘Dialogical Method’ of teaching is an effective way to show students that they’re indeed at the center of their own education. Freire explains that dialogue is essential for development. Humans, are different than other intelligent organisms because we have the ability to communicate and assure each other and ourselves in our knowledge; “we are able to know that we know.” (99). A theme in the reading that really stuck out to me was the idea of empowerment and who is the center of knowledge. In lecture-based environment’s, teachers are seen as the center of knowledge where the educator is to teach the educatee. In a dialogue based pedagogy, though the teacher is knowledgeable about the subject that they’re teaching and engaging their student with, they actively engage with their students and “relearn” the subject while studying it again with their students. The teacher is able to always find out new things and rediscover the material they’re already familiar with through working with their students closely; this turns learning into a JOINT act, rather than a solitary act.  By allowing their students to “exercise their own powers of reconstruction,” the teacher allows their students to practice personal responsibility and expression.