Re: fun and effective

[Latisha LaRue <kfischer@keller.clarke.edu>]

Really and truly, Jacqueline, this is why "Sesame Street" is banned in 
our household and has been since our now 21-year old daughter was 2.  
After nonstop singing and dancing of Big Bird hanging out with Ben Vereen 
all designed to so captivate children's focus that not even sopisticated 
"distractor" machines can draw them away, the grade school, high school, 
and college teachers have an impossible task on their hands.  Not to say 
I am not above dancing in the classroom -- nothing quite like a waltz to 
demonstrate the three-four meter of Roethke's "My Papa's Waltz," and yet I 
wonder what happens to encourage deep thinking when entertainment is the 
prime goal of a teacher's methodology.  I pay close attention to student 
evaluations -- not to do so is to risk self-righteousness and stasis.  
And I think cries of "boring" are worth listening to.  But "not 
entertaining"?  Give 'em tickets to the next poetry slam!
				Katie Fischer

> This used to be part of the "turf wars" strand, but Lynne and Stephen
> are talking about things that are both effective and fun, and taht'
> (oops) that's what I want to ask about.]
> 
> For those of you who teach in classrooms: how many of you have had
> students who clearly believe that your responsibility as their
> teacher is to make them feel entertained enough to learn? The first
> semester I taught Frosh composition, I made the mistake (I guess) of
> neglecting to work jokes, etc., into my lesson plans, and trying to 
> be merely ENGAGING -- which is not the same thing as ENTERTAINING --
> and I had students say on my evals, "She's nice and all, but she
> isn't very entertaining," or words to that effect. At first, all
> I could do was laugh. But I tried, the next semester, to "work the
> room" (is that comic-speak, or only cocktail-party-speak?), and I'll
> be durned -- those complaints about me not being entertaining were
> absent from that semester's evals.
> 
> So, I'm wondering if the expectation of being entertained is very
> widespread, or if it can be attributed to the fact that most of my
> students were fairly pampered kids, or what. Anyone had similar -- or
> markedly different -- experiences? 
> 
> Jacqueline Howse
> Coordinator, Writing Centre
> Memorial University of Newfoundland
> writingctr@kean.ucs.mun.ca
>