Week 1: The Wong Book

The first lecture of the semester was centered around an early assignment to write our philosophy on teaching. It was thought provoking. I haven't written my philosophy yet, but I have two ideas that I think I am going to focus on. The first is access.

I want the students to learn all I have to offer and the opposition to that is lack of access. Access can be denied or less available based on many factors, and for my paper I will try and find those factors and come to some conclusions and develop a philosophy for creating the least restrictive environment possible in my classroom. This is particularly interesting to me because of my investment in media and technology. I want my students to have every technological advantage available to them. Access is an issue that I've heard teachers complain about at conferences and in my own program. Lack of funds may make it more difficult to provide all the technology I want to, but even with a limited budget I believe I can find a way to get the media and technology into the classroom and students can have a hands on experience. I need to rework this idea because it sounds more like a challenge than a philosophy. I just don't want to be a teacher claiming that I would do more, but I don't have the funds. I want to give my students everything with what I do have.

The second part of my philosophy that I want to address is teaching storytelling principles, media effect on society, and film theory in conjunction with video production. My high school experience in media classes would have be better had my teacher focused on more than just the technology tools.

I've read 220 pages of our first text (pictured above) and initially I was skeptical. I kept wanting the author to stay on one subject longer and go into more depth. It jumped around and every section seemed incomplete. On page 19 there is a story entitled "If Only Someone Would Start the Class" that seems incomplete. The author is repetitive. I'm pretty sure I have read the phrase, "You manage a store, you don't discipline it" a handful of times. But all those are dumb little complaints compared to the benefits. I spent a lot of time with this text and it has brought to mind more than expected. By addressing so many aspects and bringing up so many questions, it inspires more contemplation and discussion than I would have thought. Great read.

Feathers McGraw