Students Who Teach US

This week's chapter "Students Who Teach Us..." was very interesting because it shows how composition professors and English departments are beginning to recognize how new technology and computers change the way students learn and add new types of composition for teachers to consider teaching.

One particular passage that held my attention in the chapter is that "...technologies over the last two decades has changed not only political and social structures that characterize our world, but also the ways in which people understand this world, make meaning, and formulate their own individual and group identities" (location 1176). This related back to early in the semester when we began to imagine how emerging literacy affected the day-to-day culture when alphabets and print emerged.

I understand a lot of David's self-taught understanding of computers and computers programs. While this chapter feels most relevant to teachers who are not fully aware or accustomed to digital technologies, there is another important lesson to be taken from this chapter that everyone, in all contexts, can use to their advantage.

The main point is that we can learn from our students. I think one important problem with education is that the students do not feel like they have a voice or that their education is not tailored to their day-to-day lives. I remember being bored in high school but feeling more engaged when I got to use computer programs and do internet research.

It seems like a good lesson for all teachers that if take a moment to understand the daily lives of students and what our students face every day, we can find ways to better connect and hold their interest more. While the overall article is about what the teacher learned from the students experience, the title could be taking more literally.

I felt like the article failed to discuss what happens when a student is actually teaching the teacher. Maybe I just read the title too literal and expected it to be more about something like showed in the youtube video.



Overall, this was an interesting chapter, and I really liked the autobiographies activity. I think it would be a fun assignment and would the type of assignment I'd be excited to do at home over reading a chapter or writing a short essay.