Teaching Journal

Day 143, Wednesday, May 13

 

     Today one of the teacher’s assistants (a student who helps me conduct the class) behaved in an exceptionally dignified manner. In my classes I occasionally remind the scholars about the importance of dignity, and this girl has obviously heard the message . Dignity has to do with self-respect, seriousness of manner, and a sense of worthiness, and she showed those qualities as if they were an inborn part of her. She started by saying a firm and heartening “good morning” to her classmates, and then proceeded to lead the class through the initial steps of my lesson. She spoke with self-assurance and poise, and seemed to enjoy being the person in charge. She sat up straighter than usual, as if her life had suddenly taken on some special importance.

 

     We spent most of the class time today going over the students’ annotations on the class blog. This is new software that I discovered on the internet, and it’s proven to be very effective. We were able to see the page projected on the screen, and by moving the cursor over different sentences and clicking, we could see and study the annotations the students made at home last night.  It was academic collaboration at its best – a productive way of examining a text together.