Tuesday, January 22, 2013

Ch. 6: Of Times, Teens, and Books


                This chapter, as interesting as it was, had several parts that did not really seem to relate very much to my area of study. Since I am teaching in a science classroom, I’m not entirely sure how I would go about finding graphic novels that relate to science. I’m sure they are out there, but it may not be worth the trouble of finding them, especially since a science classroom focuses on hands-on work, leaving little room to be assigning books to read outside of the school-issued textbook. I do happen to think that audiobooks could be a very good option for those students who are auditory learners, especially since they don’t have a lot of time where they get to use their auditory learning in the classroom. When I give textbook reading assignments to the class, it would be useful to know that the auditory learners in my class can also complete the reading assignment in the way that they will learn it best.

                I do also realize that selection and censorship will have a big part in the books that are allowed in my classroom. If, by chance, I wind up teaching in a religious school, there may be issues either with highly conservative parents or even the school and curriculum itself in regards to controversial topics such as evolution and stem cell research. In this case, certain textbooks that talk about those particular topics may be censored and taken out of those schools and replaced by curriculum that teaches solely creationism. This I believe takes away a child’s ability to make their own decisions, and takes away the opportunity for a great writing assignment. My biology professor presented us with several different degrees of belief in the subject, ranging from creationism to evolutionism and everything in between. Then, after being fully informed, we were given the choice of what we believed in and we had to write a paper explaining why we believed that. I think this is a valuable experience not only for practice in decision making and beliefs, but also in practicing good literacy skills.

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