I started my advanced educational psychology class yesterday and so far it's pretty good. The teacher just published a book on journal writing so she incorporates a lot of journaling into the class...totally up a blogger's alley right? Love it!
Another part of the class is book groups. She selected four texts and we each had to choose one that we wanted to read. Based on our choice, she assigned us to a group. We had to discuss with our group how much we want to read each night in order to finish the book by next week and create a project for the last class. We only have 8 classes total ( I heart summer school!) so everything is in fast forward. My group decided to read 2 chapters a night from our book Raising Cain which is about the "miseducation" of boys and how boys are not taught to properly understand and express emotions.
So yesterday after class, I came home and after blogging, checking email, dealing with craigslist people and selling my bookcase, I completed my homework assignment. Read two chapters and one article and did a journal exercise based on the article. Granted I do not have kids and I am not working during the summer and right now this is my only class...HOWEVER, if some of those things impacted my ability to take the class and complete the work, I would consider that before registering for the class.
When I got to class we met with our book groups for 30 minutes to discuss what we read. There are 5 people in my group and everyone but one other person had excuses about why they did not do the reading! I understand people have lives, but people..this is grad school! If you don't have time to do the work, why did you sign up for a class that costs roughly a thousand dollars??? This is not just about getting a credit and getting it over with, this is about bettering yourself and your teaching skills to help kids!
Since I had read and took notes (please see post title...nerd=me!) I started the conversation by reading some quotes to get other people talking. The conversation went fine and even though people had not read all of the chapters, they are still intelligent teachers who can talk about the subject.
All except one.....
One girl/woman said nothing. She texted on her phone while we talked about Raising Cain. Even when another group member said to her, "SO ____ do you have anything to add?" she looked up, said "No" and went back to looking at her phone. She contributed nothing!
Would you be mad or is it just me?
I am not a fan of working in groups sometimes, but mostly it is because of people like this who do not take responsibility for the work, don't contribute, and don't take it seriously. How is that fair to people who actually sign up for the course to learn something and take away new knowledge that might improve their teaching skills??
This person's excuse was that she takes another class right after this one that goes until 5 and then she drives far to get home. Ok, I understand that, but don't you need to take that into consideration when you register for classes? Yes, they are summer classes, so typically there is not as much work, but there is work and it needs to be done daily. I just don't get it.
I hope that she chooses to participate more in future sessions. I would never want to call her out on it, yet if she does it again, I might consider saying something to her.
Opinions??? If you think I am being a huge unreasonable nerd, please call me out on it. If you have had a similar experience please share! I heart comments!!
