Dora the Explorer...kind of.

The main thing I took away from the story about Dora, and our class discussion, was the fact that almost all of us could relate. While Dora's story was a bit extreme (or at least that seemed to be the thought of many classmates), there was a lot that could be taken away from it. Students need trial and error in order to learn, and by supporting them throughout the process, teachers can help students become independent learners. I appreciated that in Dora's learning journey, her teacher did not automatically tell her the answers when she was struggling with a topic. Instead of skipping the exploration aspect, Dora's teacher gave hints to help her learn. Having taken part in the T&L 317 practicum, I understand the importance of letting students come to their own conclusions - to an extent. Obviously students need help if they do not fully understand a concept and are struggling with it greatly, but there is an advantage in leaving room for the students to explore.

After our discussion in class, however, I did not feel like we had discussed this very much. While it was beneficial for us to talk about our own experiences and how they related to Dora's, I think it would have been much more beneficial for us to think about how it would apply to secondary classes, considering that is where we are planning on teaching. I fear that a lot of secondary education majors do not think they will have to deal with struggling readers and writers because students "learn" to read and write at a much younger age, but that is not really always the case.

During my practicum, I encountered a number of students who were reading at low levels, and it was the responsibility of the secondary English teacher to make sure they advanced in reading enough to be successful in all of their classes. A class full of advanced learners may be ideal, but it might not be completely realistic. I do not expect that we will necessarily have classes full of students reading and writing at the primer level, but we will have students performing at a variety of levels and it is important to be prepared for that. The grammar lessons we have gone through, and the recent use of workshops, have provided me with some insight as how to encourage cooperation of students at different levels, and I look forward to receiving more ideas. I think it is important to make sure we (as teachers) are aware of the different levels of our students, but the varying levels are not necessarily something we need to share with the rest of the class. By having students interact using their writing, everyone can benefit and learn editing techniques as well as receive feedback on their own pieces.

I hope that as a class we delve into this a bit more. We seemed to repeat each other for a majority of the discussion on Thursday because we were so concerned with relating Dora's experience to our own. While it is important to see the connections between her learning journey and our own, I personally believe it is more important to draw on our experiences in order to help our future students, not to relive our own glory (or non-glory) days.