Some thoughts

Reading some of the other posts has fed into my thoughts about the readings this week. Katie's discussion of the school-imposed dichotomy between "good" and "bad" students reminds me strongly of my own high school experience, though at the time it was not something I actively thought about. I was also a "good" student; I was in Honors and AP classes, getting good grades, favored by teachers and so on. Most of my friends were part of the same "class" of students as I was. I knew hardly any of the students in any of the remedial classes our school offered because unless we were in the same gym class, we just didn't run in the same intellectual circles. The rememedial classes were commonly referred to as "stupid math" or "stupid English" instead of "remedial" by almost all the students, whether they were in those classes or not. My senior year was the first time I was not in an honors English class (we only had AP English or British Literature at that level) Suddenly the honors class that I had had for ever other year of English (and many other classes) was gone, and I was sitting in a classroom full of students with many different intellectual designations. Many of them were less involved and less interested in the material than my honors class peers had been. It was the first time that I observed keenly the divide between the smart, motivated students, many of whom came to high school expecting to do exactly as well as they did, and everyone else, many of whom had only the goal of graduating. Thinking about these things made me wonder how I would handle tutoring a student with a background like many of the students in remedial classes I went to high school with. If his or her only goal was just to make it through the paper, just to get a passing grade, how would I cope with the lack of interest in doing well? As the students coming in to the center asking for some kind of verification that they've been there attest, not everyone comes because they genuinely want help. I have led two sessions thus far, and while both students were sent to the center by their teachers, neither of them was the type of student I described.

Another post I connected with was Jenna's. She talked about having difficulty connecting her literacy in music to her development as a writer. I have thought about that same problem for myself. My entire family in deeply involved in music (I am, in fact, the only member who did not or does not intend to major in music) and it has been a part of my life since before I was born. However, at this point I have still not found a way to connect that to my interest or development in writing. Actually, I think that one of the things that most encouraged my young writing was starting school in the fifth grade, but I'm not really sure that tackling grade school as a literacy sounds like a good idea.