Monday, September 08, 2003
TEACHER’S PORTFOLIO
Every now and then, I try to save letters, awards, certificates and other noteworthy paraphernalia to add to my collection of items that I will someday put in a professional portfolio. This way, when I leave my current profession to pursue my dream job of being a tour guide at a Smithsonian Institute in D.C. (if the teaching in college thing doesn’t work out), I will have something for my future employers to look at and judge my ability by.
[For all you grammar mavens out there, I DO realize I just ended a sentence with a preposition. (rolling eyes) Bite me. Bite me hard.]
For your reading pleasure today (and because that is the only pleasure I am comfortable satisfying for you at the moment), I have decided to share a letter from a student I taught last year. To protect his identity we shall call him Grover.To protect his identity even more, we shall pronounce Grover with a French accent, "gro- vay", for added effect. Last year, a week or two before the semester exam in December, I told the students that I would help them review by posting review games and quizzes on my website. I nonchalantly mentioned that it would probably help them ace the exam. Of course, very few students took advantage of the opportunity, but for those who did, there was a little extra credit surprise waiting on each review page of the website. One of the extra credit opportunities requested each student to email me two things they liked about English class, and two things they didn’t like. I wanted to have some student feedback so that I could modify and adjust my teaching style for the students who felt I might not have been meeting their needs.
Grover (once again, that's "gro-vay") wrote me a letter, which I have kept in my email inbox for a year now. I plan to someday place it in my portfolio because it meant a lot to me for a variety of reasons. I have told both Grover and Grover's mom (Mademoiselle gro-vay) my intentions with the email, so I hope I am not violating anyone's trust by posting it. There have been no changes to the format or grammar.
I have a feeling that people who read this may have mixed reactions. I welcome any questions or comments you may have.
From: Grover@grover.com
To: Ms. Graduate Girl
Subject: Four Things About English Class
HONEST PART
Well, seeing as I'm not going to be graded on my letter composition, (I hope) I'm not really worried about the neatness of it. As you may have guessed I'm only writing this letter to get two extra credit points. However, since you don't want to know that, just scroll down and ignore this part.
STUDENT PART
I was so thrilled to be able to write you a letter that I just wanted to procrastinate and make it as long as I could. So now I will list two things that I like about your class.
I like:
#1 That you deal with the class in a strict but loving manner and always have our best interest (of this I have no doubt) in mind.
#2 You have no mercy on the underlings that don't do their work. BWHAHAHAAHHAHA, and that you keep discipline and order in your classroom.
P.S. (Can I write this? Oh well) I seem to strive on discipline and it helps that its the last class of the day and it helps even more that your always in a good mood for our class.
At this point I'm going to ask you to look above and notice that we are completely out of the honest zone and that I am not responsible for any false information given. (HAHA just kidding :-)
I don't like:
#1 All the homework!! (I know your heart must be bleeding for me right about now) and all our class does is WHINE WHINE WHINE! yada yada yada! blah blah blah--by the way I'm amazed at how much you teachers can put up with, is it mandatory to take a tolerance course to become a teacher?
#2 Uhhh...You've been the only teacher to give me a lunch detention! (not to mention 2!) How could you? (dumb question) How could I?!
Yeah that pretty much wraps it up.
Love ya-
Grover
Keep up the good work--thanks for devoting your time to ensuring the education of the next generation--Whoa did I just come up with that?
Every now and then, I try to save letters, awards, certificates and other noteworthy paraphernalia to add to my collection of items that I will someday put in a professional portfolio. This way, when I leave my current profession to pursue my dream job of being a tour guide at a Smithsonian Institute in D.C. (if the teaching in college thing doesn’t work out), I will have something for my future employers to look at and judge my ability by.
[For all you grammar mavens out there, I DO realize I just ended a sentence with a preposition. (rolling eyes) Bite me. Bite me hard.]
For your reading pleasure today (and because that is the only pleasure I am comfortable satisfying for you at the moment), I have decided to share a letter from a student I taught last year. To protect his identity we shall call him Grover.To protect his identity even more, we shall pronounce Grover with a French accent, "gro- vay", for added effect. Last year, a week or two before the semester exam in December, I told the students that I would help them review by posting review games and quizzes on my website. I nonchalantly mentioned that it would probably help them ace the exam. Of course, very few students took advantage of the opportunity, but for those who did, there was a little extra credit surprise waiting on each review page of the website. One of the extra credit opportunities requested each student to email me two things they liked about English class, and two things they didn’t like. I wanted to have some student feedback so that I could modify and adjust my teaching style for the students who felt I might not have been meeting their needs.
Grover (once again, that's "gro-vay") wrote me a letter, which I have kept in my email inbox for a year now. I plan to someday place it in my portfolio because it meant a lot to me for a variety of reasons. I have told both Grover and Grover's mom (Mademoiselle gro-vay) my intentions with the email, so I hope I am not violating anyone's trust by posting it. There have been no changes to the format or grammar.
I have a feeling that people who read this may have mixed reactions. I welcome any questions or comments you may have.
From: Grover@grover.com
To: Ms. Graduate Girl
Subject: Four Things About English Class
HONEST PART
Well, seeing as I'm not going to be graded on my letter composition, (I hope) I'm not really worried about the neatness of it. As you may have guessed I'm only writing this letter to get two extra credit points. However, since you don't want to know that, just scroll down and ignore this part.
STUDENT PART
I was so thrilled to be able to write you a letter that I just wanted to procrastinate and make it as long as I could. So now I will list two things that I like about your class.
I like:
#1 That you deal with the class in a strict but loving manner and always have our best interest (of this I have no doubt) in mind.
#2 You have no mercy on the underlings that don't do their work. BWHAHAHAAHHAHA, and that you keep discipline and order in your classroom.
P.S. (Can I write this? Oh well) I seem to strive on discipline and it helps that its the last class of the day and it helps even more that your always in a good mood for our class.
At this point I'm going to ask you to look above and notice that we are completely out of the honest zone and that I am not responsible for any false information given. (HAHA just kidding :-)
I don't like:
#1 All the homework!! (I know your heart must be bleeding for me right about now) and all our class does is WHINE WHINE WHINE! yada yada yada! blah blah blah--by the way I'm amazed at how much you teachers can put up with, is it mandatory to take a tolerance course to become a teacher?
#2 Uhhh...You've been the only teacher to give me a lunch detention! (not to mention 2!) How could you? (dumb question) How could I?!
Yeah that pretty much wraps it up.
Love ya-
Grover
Keep up the good work--thanks for devoting your time to ensuring the education of the next generation--Whoa did I just come up with that?
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