Reflection Journal Entry 9-9 through 9-13

It was our first full week of classes this week. Unfortunately, I missed two of the three meetings because I was sick. However, I still read the book that we were supposed to read for this week, "Schooled." "Schooled" was a book that I personally wasn't looking forward to reading. I mean as a college student, how often do I get handed a book that's actually interesting and makes me want to read it? Never, that's when. When I picked "Schooled" off of the table at the end of last week, I was pretty skeptical to even read the first chapter. I did it anyway, of course, but I was pleasantly surprised. It wasn't a boring book about bullying or inclusion or anything like that. It was a pretty great book about a hippie child that gets put into public school with no prior information to the "real world" and gets a rude awakening. He eventually wins over the eighth grade class of "C Average Middle School" and teaches everyone that different is okay, learning about the real world and all of its wonders in the process. I enjoyed the book, and I surprised myself all in the same week. It all came together Friday in class when I took part in our test trial of our group summary that we did at my table. I not only got to see the opinions of everyone in my group, but I also got presented a new way to put together information using everyone's thoughts and ideas, and that's pretty cool. More times than not group projects and discussions are ran by one or two people while everyone else just sits back and lets it happen; even if the other members of the group have different thoughts or ideas, they don't get brought to light because of the few people in the group that took the reigns. It was a great learning experience, even if it was just one small thing. Discussions make my blood boil sometimes because it's usually only lead by a few people and it's mostly listening and being bored, especially if you don't agree with their viewpoints or they're not providing adequate information. There's so much I could say about group discussions about books and my experiencs in the past, and I only hope that as I move through this class, I'll learn many new techniques to use with my classroom someday so they don't have to go through what I (or I'm sure the majority of most students) have. Now I'll be a lot more eager to read a book when I get it in K-12 lit as well as discuss it. :)