What came out of my mouth when I was answering was ...
"I feel so privleged"... and nothing could be truer. It is really a privlege to get to know your students more individually through what the express in their journals ... it gives you a better chance of getting your teaching content just right for that particular class too.
Most of all, journal reading when students grow throughout the semester is incredibly rewarding. And I learn so much through reading them too.
I DO find it difficult to allocate a mark to them. I have no trouble scribbling all over them with comments, and sometimes have to stop myself - it is just that they are always so interesting. But when it comes to quantifying a mark ... one someone's JOURNAL? I do struggle with that, and always refer back to the guidelines from the beginning of semester when I want to give everyone 100% just for tacking the whole exercise!
I know for myself, when I included my personal journal excerpts in my thesis ... I was a little scared of showing these to my academic supervisors ...but they modelled it well for me .. they stayed reasonably objective about the things I raised in my journal, guided me softly and showed intense respect ... so I had good teachers myself I suppose...
It is a task I do with great respect for each student ... and by the end of the semester it is usually with great pride too ... but don't tell them I said that ... they'll think I'm really a softie ...
1 comment:
I remember a teacher telling me that she felt priveleged to read the essays of her teenage students. They often wrote from the heart and some of them had terrible problems. She hoped that writing things down helped them a bit.
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