Nakkula Chapter 1







Nakkula also says that “no one is a solo author,” (Nakkula 6) when it comes to creating our life narratives. He also goes on to say how the students we work with are “co-writing’ our narratives just as we are cowriting theirs,” (pg. 7). This statement resonated with me because the students we work with everyday play such a huge role in our lives and sometimes we don’t realize how much they shape how our lives and how we live. This cowriting also reminded me of a TedTalk about the dangers of a 'single story' and how we can learn from understanding the story of so many different people and perspectives. However, this also means that our connections and relationships with our students also affects how we experience ourselves as teachers. On page 13 Nakkula speaks to how teachers depend on affirmation from their students and how teachers can feel hurt to have student resistance after much work. This resonated with me a lot because I have had times where I plan a ‘perfect’ lesson and it doesn’t always go how I envision and then get disheartened at the end of the day. Circling back to Ayers, we need to be able to be reflective so that we can deepen our connections with the students and really get to understand how we can best engage with them to promote their learning within the classroom.





Reading through Chapter 1 of Nakkula’s book “Understanding Youth” I had a lot of moments where I went “Oh yea that’s how I feel” or “Yup, that’s happened to me.” Working with adolescents in middle school, I always get “I don’t know how you do it” especially when they realize the community I work in. My response is always the same, “Yea it can be tough but it’s also a lot of fun.” Referring back to Ms. Petersen’s story, I have definitely been guilty of engaging with a student despite my better judgment, and afterward will always reflect on how I could have handled the situation differently and more effectively for both myself and the student. On page 3, Nakkula states that adolescents attempting to disrupt classroom routines are “testing the nature and boundaries of their relationships and the learning environments in which these relationships are created.” This “tested knowledge” allows the students to create an idea of how the world operates and their role within it. As a teacher, we are constantly put through ‘tests’ by students so that they can see how we react or don’t react. For example, if a student has a cell phone out when they’re not supposed to and they know I see it but don’t say anything, they’re going to continue to test and even push this until something changes in the situation.

Comments

  1. UnknownSeptember 24, 2018 at 6:00 PM

    Bianca,

    I like how you reflect on your own experience of not knowing whether or not you handled a situation with a student correctly. We have all been there, and I think it is always great to ponder these situations. We can't be perfect every time, especially when things happen out of the blue and you have to make an instant decision. I think if you keep taking the time to think about these experiences, you can only make improvements in your practice.

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  2. UnknownSeptember 25, 2018 at 4:38 PM

    Hi Bianca-

    I enjoyed how you mentioned how you always get asked the question of how do you work with middle school students. I get asked the same question and find it frustrating at time when people say how hard it must be. Yes, it can be extremely hard some days, but I don't think that they realize that educators are not in the field because we want an easy job. Like you, I found myself being able to make connections while reading this chapter.

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    Replies
    1. UnknownSeptember 25, 2018 at 4:39 PM

      Also- not sure if it's something on my end but the formatting of your blog seems off this week. If you did it on google docs before and pasted it I know that sometimes gives me issues.

      Delete

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