The Labor of Love

Let me start off by saying that Peter Smagorinski is my kind of guy! Does anyone else feel that sense of joyous victory as you actually find yourself enjoying AND UNDERSTANDING what Smagorinski has to say, without having to read a sentence 10 times over because you get lost in the countless commas and foreign words? I have no doubt that Smagorinski has a lot of valuable advice about teaching and student learning that we will think back to and most likely apply in our student teaching and future classes. I find that many of his statements summarize what we have already come across at some point in our academic journey to becoming teachers. (I became his disciple when he promised that having a well prepared and thought out unit plan will guarantee a good night's sleep!)

In terms of his ideas on constructivist theory, I appreciate his explanation as to why this theory of teaching is an effective one. I was always fascinated by this theory of teaching when I first learned about it because I think that it is the theory that I identify with the most. Also, what teacher wouldn't want students to have the ability to construct their own knowledge and reflect on and develop this knowledge? Preparing for this form of teaching and learning means encouraging students to step outside of their comfort zones, have them reflect on their building of knowledge, and examine how their knowledge is changing based on their reflections. The way I understand this is that as teachers, we have to prepare this encouraging environment and weed out the students' misconceptions and address them. I think this theory of learning encourages teachers to hold themselves responsible for setting up the right environment for learning by planning and addressing student work. It also encourages students to take control of their learning. It made me think about creating meaning for students by teaching through creative outlets, or making subject matter relative to students. Smagorinski says that people learn by making, and reflecting on, things that they find useful and important. Setting students up with the right tools and having them experiment and create meaning with those tools in a meaningful way is how I think students learn effectively.

Reading Smagorinski made me think a lot about how students learn and how I would teach in relation to that, which then made me think of why I wanted to become a teacher in the first place. What made me want to become someone who takes on the responsibility of a student's learning of a subject I think holds a crucial role in our Democratic Society. If I was asked to make a list of reasons as to why I wanted to be a teacher when I was 8 years old, my hand would have scribbled, "because I can write on the chalkboard!" This 21-year-old aspiring teacher wrote a list of reasons today, and writing on the chalkboard was not one of them.

I decided that the main reason why I want to teach English is because I think that the power of Literacy is often times overlooked. I feel confident enough in my skills and experiences to take on the responsibility of teaching future generations that reading and writing in different ways to target different audiences successfully can empower them. I believe that students can be taught certain skills in specific circumstances that will allow them to communicate successfully, and be confident and active voices in their Democratic Communities. I also want students to overcome their fears of reading literature. I want to spark that AHA! moment that students have when they make connections from Literature to their everyday lives.

I guess now my goal is to take in as much as Smagorinski and other authors, my professors, mentor teachers, colleagues, and students that I observe and work with have to say about teaching, so that I may achieve what I wrote in my list of why I want to be an English Teacher. I want to execute the right amount of constructivist theory and a little bit of authoritative theory to achieve the right balance of good work ethic and a want to learn and build on their knowledge from a student's perspective. I'll end with this quote from Smagorinski about his notion of work that caught my attention. "...It refers to the labor of love, the transforming potential of authentic, constructive, productive activity" (xv).