People-Watching; Connect the Blogs

Ah, Fridays. Many LHS teachers subscribe to the 'Casual Friday' dress code, including Ms. Cranford (my cooperating teacher). And I am taking full advantage of that policy by wearing loose-fitting carpenter jeans, beat-up sneakers, and the most flowery Hawaiian shirt in my wardrobe. After spending the rest of the week wearing 'nice' shirts and Dockers in a futile attempt to appear well-dressed and conventionally respectable, this feels good.

As I've mentioned before, one of my primary tasks in the classroom is to help out students when they get to work on their current assignment in class. Ms. Cranford has a knack for spotting students that are struggling on their own but have not yet worked up the nerve to actively seek help. It's almost uncanny: out of nowhere, I'll see her stroll over to a student's desk and ask if s/he needs help, and nine times out of ten s/he accepts the offer. I've tried to pull this stunt a few times, but my batting average is far, far lower than Ms. Cranford's.

Nonverbal communication has never been my strong suit. I suck at gathering intelligence about people through discreet observation. I hope to improve my skills through practical experience, but I have good reason to doubt that I will ever be as proficient as someone like Ms. Cranford. Of course, she also encourages students to help each other solve problems -- and therein lies my salvation. When I finally land my own teaching gig somewhere, I think I'll have better luck with measures designed to help students help themselves. Any student who meekly waits for me to notice their plight may end up waiting for quite a while.

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At the end of my previous post, I briefly floated the idea of linking all the EOU student teaching blogs together. The whole point of blogging, after all, is that it gives us a way to share our observations and reflections with others and learn from their experiences in return. Any measure that facilitates this sharing process works to the benefit of us all.

Sharon Porter has posted links to many (but not all) of our blogs on Blackboard. I propose taking things one step further. If you look to right of these posts, you will find a hyper-linked list of EOU student-teaching blogs. I'm not going to claim that it's a comprehensive list, but it's a start. You too should strongly consider adding such a list to your own blog, or expanding the one you already have. If enough of us do this, we could connect every active MAT blog to every other MAT blog. Any link missed by one list could be archived on another, and eventually shared with the rest of us.

I got the idea after browsing the MAT blogs I had already been following. I stumbled across a link to Word on The Street, Jessie's blog. This was a great find for several reasons: (1) her blog address had not found its way onto Sharon's Blackboard list; (2) Jessie writes well; and (3) she had compiled the longest list of MAT blogs to date, including a few others I had not read. I am now following those blogs.

If anyone needs help setting up their blog list, let me know by posting a comment. I will respond in kind.