Academic classroom discussions
Comments(1) Overall I believe there could have been a more motivating way to really get me thinking academically about things in High School. In general, I was disappointed by the lack of meaningful discussion in my classrooms. Shakespeare, for example, is filled with ideas, theories and themes. Yet, I don’t remember discussing Shakespeare. All I remember is trying to write something about what I read in isolation. I think it would have been far more meaningful if we could have taken the time to not only learn about what Shakespeare was saying but to actually individually discuss what was happening in the play.
Recently I have been thinking about how as a student I wasn’t considered to be a typically academic student. My spelling and grammar were subpar. My math skills mediocre at best. Yet i still felt an academic spirit within me, and it came out in the manner of discussion. The most natural way i could analyze anything (how most teenagers could) was through movies. I could pick out what the director was trying to get me to see, I could read the manipulating words in the script, even pick out hollywood trends. I thrived at it. What came as a shock to me is that this was something that all of my friends did, and it came naturally. We would discuss, analyze and interpret movies. Perhaps it wasn’t the media particularly but the fact that we all shared in this body of work and interest. I think discussion of art in general is a very integral way of life for teenagers. Not only do they seem to naturally discuss films, but they also think about and discuss music. I believe it would be very natural to facilitate and lead discussions on artistic matters and taste.
I’m inclined to agree with you on this one. It’s not something we usually think about, but we often discuss things that we are interested in or are relevant to our lives. This is no knock at Shakespeare or Shakespeare lovers, but partaking in discussion is something that all of us do naturally on a daily basis. It is getting this discussion going in the classroom that poses a challenge. There will be students that are more engaged than others but the proposed discussion activities provide a good backdrop to starting them. The book had the great line about the “meat” and how without the “meat” (the dialogue), you would not have the burger (class and learning). It’s true and I never thought of it that way. I always viewed discussions to be a “lazy” use of time but after being in so many, I can see why they are so conducive to learning.
Like you and I’m sure many of us out there, I also struggled to understand the works of Shakespeare. (I also encountered this problem with many English literary works I read in Grade 12). My class was run by the teacher and the only type of speaking we would do in English or Lit class was to read out the lines. Apart from that, discussion about the plays were non-existent. I “learned” the meaning of Shakespeare’s plays by copying down the teacher’s interpretations in the side bar, referring to the footnotes, and by looking up this information on Cole’s notes. It was not my favourite class to say the least. If the class used some form of discussion during these lessons, I think I would have enjoyed his works a lot more. Studying these sentences that do not make sense to me…just..did not make sense to me! Why did we have to learn this? Just because it is part of the Western canon of literature, how is this “nonsense” supposed to help me in life? Needless to say, I was frustrated. I think Role Playing would be effective in this situation. With the combination of live actors reading out these difficult lines, perhaps I and the rest of the class would come to a better understanding of just what we were studying.