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The theme here is education. I'm trying to gather information about what makes the best learning experiences. Could you leave a comment, saying what class you've really loved in your life, maybe a subject in college, maybe an after school art class. Could you say what it was about and why you liked it?
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Thanks, Connie
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4 comments:
I sent these fond recollections I had of teachers to a boyhood friend in an email on 1/5/2005. Although they're about teachers, not classes per se, they may still be of value as a reply to your posting
Raymond Fortun put the book, A Canticle for Leibowitz, into my possession, knowing that reading it might awaken my youthful intellect way back in 1960. He knew --as I see now how prophetic that act was--that the book’s theme would remain in my mind in an important way for the rest of my life. Since I’m the king of my realm of memories, I’ve knighted him “Sir Raymond,” an adept and worldly-wise knight of comedy, despite his living the tragedies of Great Depression and World War II. I actually cried hard and long when I learned of his untimely death a number of years ago. He brightened every day of my life as a student.
Katherine Williams’ playful course of having us first perform William Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night’s Dream in her eighth-grade classroom, then of compounding the joy of learning it with a night of magical fun at a professional performance of the play at Pittsburgh playhouse, was public education at its finest. We pubescents were treated to the opportunity of gleefully mouthing word for word the bawdy lines we already practiced in class and now heard delivered by a ready troop of performers--all the while laughing ourselves silly without regard to a more decent composure imposed ineffectively by our row of seats. Katherine Williams provided me with perhaps the finest memory I have of public schooling.
Deno Acciai suited me up for a first dive into mathematics-based science--a slide-ruled slip into the algebraical shallows off a wide deeper ocean of physical knowledge. His enthusiasm in teaching us to see a world beyond bigboys and fries, and tits and ass, contributed to a lasting wonder for science in my heart of hearts.
There is more to be celebrated, than to be scorned. James Marsili, a WWII bomber pilot turned via GI-Bill into a first-hand-account world history teacher, awakened a first awareness in me of how terrible being human can be by a signal showing of sixteen millimeter films of Holocaust scenes so unimaginably gruesome that I have nightmares in my mind to this day. He told us I don't want any of you ever to forget that this horrific atrocity happened.
In each case, these were more than "figures" of teachers to me, they were real people whose largess and humanity made the significant, lasting impact on me.
Hi Skip,
Thank you very much for your stories about great teachers--very relevant in this current pursuit of figuring out what good education is all about. Your stories are illuminating--what great teachers do is far beyond getting the "basics" across, unless we redefine basics!
Hi! I found your blog via Classroom 2.0.
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