“I’ve got it! I’ll teach the word ‘antidisestablishmentarianism’ to a bunch of first graders!” The thought just popped into my head. Five minutes later, after eyes bulged at the massive string of letters stretched across the board and desperate cries of “That’s impossible!” I had almost two dozen children excitedly chanting antidisestablishmentarianism one after the other waving their hands in the air wildly competing to be the next one to take a shot at it. I was only covering this class for that day but when I happened to see them again four days later many of them practically shouted the word at me.
Though unconventional, there was a method to my madness. First, I wanted to know if it was possible to teach such a word to first graders. Though, I was confident I could, I was surprised I did it in only five minutes.
Second, and most importantly, I was trying to drive home a point to these young readers. I smiled mischievously when they said it was “impossible” because I would soon prove them all wrong and strike my educational coup de grace: I told them that this was the hardest word in the English language and if they could read this, they could read anything.
My little experiment was really an exercise in using difficulty to, paradoxically, boost student confidence. Self esteem is a critical determining factor for educational success. Often the most logical course of action is to begin with simple lessons and work gradually towards more difficult ones.
A more interesting approach is to begin with something difficult, or better yet, the most difficult thing you can throw at your students and attack it in such a way as to demonstrate that though it’s the most difficult thing they will study in your course it’s really not that difficult at all.
After tackling something like that a student can confidently approach any other work, book or assignment knowing that the worst is behind him. Not only that but the methodology for attacking a difficult problem whether math or reading or anything else is applicable to easier problems. Consider it like pulling duct tape off of skin. You can do it slowly but that’s long and painfully. Better to grit your teeth and just rip it off as fast as you can.
When teaching antidisestablishmentarianism, I went through a whole gamut of word attack strategies. All of them applicable to problematic smaller words. It was all very efficient. But woe to the teacher who underestimates her students and plans such a lesson for a whole class period!
i’m stealing this idea.
OT question: i’m not a fan of “higher” education at all – but i’ve been told that it gets better after undergrad, as far as independent thinking & research opportunities go. in your experience, what were the major benefits to the teacher ed program you were in?
i’ve been teaching for a year and i’m debating whether to go back for MA or just take the state certifications & conduct my own research under the guidance of a respected educator, inshaAllah; but i would like to hear from others who’ve done it already. maybe you should write a post on it
In general, scholarship in the field of education is very ideological. When I was doing research I benefited most, not from journals in the educational field, but rather sociological journals dealing with education and histories.
I feel educational research is further tainted by government funding. Instead of pursuing a spectrum of creative and unorthodox educational methodologies things like government grants inextricably marry educational research to a constrained public school framework.
As for advice about getting an MA. If you plan to stay in education know that your best chance of increasing your earnings is through collecting degrees and taking more classes. If you want to do research, you might as well earn an MA. I suggest you scout a program where the professors that would advise you would be lenient enough to give you the creative leeway you want.
Let me know what kind of research you are interested in. I may be able to point you in some interesting directions.