Monday, December 8, 2008

Englis 111


This year I finally decided to retake English since I did not finish it the first time that I attempted to go to school. I struggle with English due to my dyslexia. I have always had a hard time with it, and because of so, have never really liked English. I work in an office where computers and writing are a part of my everyday world and with struggling with this it had made it harder and harder to do even the easiest tasks. So I decided to retake the course and try to better myself. On the very first day I knew that I would like the class since the teacher seemed very unorthodox. I don’t respond to the normality of lectures and tests. I prefer to get involved with the class and actually discuss with what is going on with the world. Just because the classroom door closes, does not mean that the world closes outside. Many teachers want to leave the world at the doors, but for every student there they bring the world with them and don’t know how to live any other way. With it being a night course, every student has just finished there long day of work and now have to sit thought a three hours zone of learning, and everyone is thinking the same thing, “I’d rather be home.” Night classes are for the ones who have the busy lives and want to better themselves for what ever reason. They are there for a purpose and all want to learn. But the problem is getting and holding their attention long enough to instill greater knowledge into their minds. I can firmly say that my teacher got my attention in more ways than one. The methods were unique, which made me think, “Hey, he’s a little bit different.” But different doesn’t always mean better. The material was always good, but the planning was always all over the place. The outline of the class would change every week to the point that no one new what going to happen when we walked in the door. From how I felt in the beginning of the class was no where near how I felt towards the end.

My sister is a teacher in Portsmouth, VA. She spends hours on her lesson plans in trying to make sure that it structured and so it flows from assignment to assignment. When you have a job where you have to teach someone skills you have to do it in some kind of an order. It would be the same equivalent of giving a 10 year old a new game for his birthday and never telling or showing him how to play the game. He may learn how to play it one day, but without someone there to guide him step by step, hey may never learn how to do it properly.

I very much enjoyed my class in spite of how much I despise English, but I do feel that it could have been ran more efficiently.

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