Goodbye and Hello!

Hello students,
I would like to thank you all for doing an awesome job journaling, sharing with all of us about your service-learning day to day, and commenting with enthusiasm and thoughtfulness on each other's experiences. I am delighted to read that all of you recommended their classroom teacher or reading coach for future years which to me is one obvious sign that you had a good learning experience all in all. As I read some of your posts, I noticed, at times, how some of you express concerns about their personal fit within the teaching profession. Some of you also express being conflicted between your sadness about leaving your student "mentees" and your happiness about having completed this part of the course as well as the semester coming to an end and bringing (for hopefully most of us) if not a real vacation, at least a change of schedule or scenery! This internal tension/conflict seems perfectly appropriate to me. In fact, this concern shows maturity, and reflection! Hopefully, this experience will remain with you down the road and you can keep referring to it as both a developmental and educational landmark. As I explained in class, I will be reading all of your blogs and comments in the coming week. I will be paying particular attention to:
- the quantity of posts and comments
- the appropriateness of your response to prompts
- the depth of your reflecting on issues encountered in the classroom
- the ability to connect your experiences to authors we read and issues we tackled
- the ability to connect to your own schooling experience and personal background as it relates to issues of power and privilege.
This Service-learning experience is worth 25% of your final grade, as you know!
Finally I would like to say goodbye to you as Fned 346 students and hello as future candidates to the wonderful and rewarding teaching profession (underrated!). I will be in town until may 12 if you have questions and available per email after this.
Good luck and don't be a stranger ;-)