Journal #7: Frustration

 I broke section five of the book into two different sections, as it is about double the length of all the other ones, and I have to say, I didn’t gather a damn thing about how to play the harmonica.  The chapter starts with saying it is rather difficult to play some of the riffs.  However, I just don’t understand how to do this by reading it off of a piece of paper.

I was reminded of, as I read this section, of a part in Harry Potter where the teacher will not let them practice defense against the dark arts and Harry asks how they are suppose to do it and she tells them a theoretical knowledge of how to use the magic should help them in their OWL exams.  I am not sure if I got that correct, but I know that I don’t feel like practicing these riffs because not only do they not sound good, I don’t know how to practice them.

I am reminded, again, of when I use to play in my band. When I did not understand something I would just play with my friends or listen to it played until I got it.  It was more about making good sounding music then understanding riff patterns to use.  I feel like I have put the cart before the horse.

A third revelation I’ve come to while writing this journal about reading group texts.  If a student doesn’t understand or know a concept after reading the 2^nd chapter, or hasn’t even read the 2^nd chapter, how can I keep their attention later in the text? I ask this because I am on chapter 5 of this text and I am getting a headache just remembering chapter one and trying to figure it out. 

Maybe this is what tests are for, for us to gather our thoughts over a section of the text that makes sense to go over and then we are able to move on.  It also forces us to practice the skills necessary to move on.  I feel like the text is referencing things that I “should know” but don’t and they aren’t helping me understand at all.  It’s like skipping algebra and moving straight to calculus. 

How can we individualize education so that we don’t have students forced to go at the ‘pace of the program’ (as I am forcing myself to do in this book) and instead allow them to individualize it for their self-learning process?

Another idea for my research project:

(1) People get so caught up in hitting the rudimentary tasks of a class that we forget what the big idea is about.  I think I mentioned this about in one of my earlier journals, or something like it, that we get so focused and lost on the individual ‘battles’ of a task that we forget what the big picture is and we need to be constantly reminded of that. 

Learning how to play the harmonica is not a good enough reason to learn how to play it.  Why did I want to learn how to play it? Why is it important? Students should be able to answer these questions for themselves, not just be able to get the answer from the teacher.