I see a lot of similarities between Ms. Bishop and Ms. Gruwell. Both teachers abandoned their traditional styles of teaching when their vision toward each student surpassed the letter grade they had received in the class. For Ms. Gruwell, the diary entries allowed her to take a look inside the “real” student and see them for who they were outside the classroom, their hopes and their dreams, their strengths and weaknesses. She stepped into the students’ world, found out their interests, and discovered ways that she could incorporate certain aspects in their life that they truly cared about outside the classroom, into the curriculum. Similarly, Ms. Bishop found out who her students were when she eavesdropped on a rap battle going on in the lunch room. She abandoned her traditional views toward modern music and saw to her what had been a new “trend” as art. She saw past what I’m sure was a little bit of controversial lyrics as an art form. She began to see rap as what it was, lyrics that use all different forms of literary devices as well as certain aspects of poetry. Because Ms. Bishop was open-minded toward her more “up to date” students, she was successful in the classroom. She created a group called Baseline Entertainment, an after school program in which students started out spitting rhymes at one another to eventually producing music. For many of these students, academics were not something that the students enjoyed or they believed they even had a future in, however, Ms. Bishop opened up these students’ eyes to see that what they were doing was educational and could be a large part of their future. Ms. Bishop succeeded because it gave these students something to look forward to everyday. For some, it was a change to actually be part of something interesting and educational at the same time. They developed an enthusiasm toward this new style of poetry and as a result put a majority of their efforts toward the program. For many, Baseline Entertainment started out as a path but had eventually became a journey. These students who were once hesitant about the program now still keep baseline in their hearts and have grasped a further understanding of their futures, who they are, and who they want to be. I believe that in order to be a good teacher, you must teach your students what they ought to know about the world, what has happened and how to prevent the negative it from happening again. Yet in order to be a great teacher you must teach their students what they ought to know about themselves. When a teacher has accomplished this task, I think they can truly consider themselves successful.
Education Class Week 9
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