STUDY GROUP OUTLINE

1. Educational theorist Freire said, "Only the student can name the moment of the death of the professor." Ms. Vella adds, "But the professor has to welcome that moment in order to surely die as professor." (pg 67) Has there been a "death moment" in your teaching career? Describe that event and what effect it had on your teaching.
2. Have you ever been a mentor? Have you ever been mentored? What were the benefits and/or disadvantages you experienced in each role? Is either role one you want to experience again, and in what contexts would you seek to be either a mentor or a mentoree? Have you approached someone you admire to be a mentor to you, and, if so, what was the reaction? Are you currently in a mentor/mentoree relationship?
3. One example from the chapter is of a hospice program in North Carolina. Every three months one half of the staff received nurturing from the other half. (pg 69) What was your first reaction to this story? Did your feeling change later? How are you at receiving - not giving - compliments?
4. How do you express affirmation in your classroom? Give examples.
5. "We teachers have to honor our own need to learn and talk about it honestly. This is the greatest respect we can offer adult learners." (pg 70) When was the last time you admitted to your students that you "don't know?" How did you feel exposing your weaknesses? Do you have any sense of how the students felt?
6. Negative capability is the ability "to not intrude, to wait, to be patient, to be on call, accessible as a resource" (pg 71) to your students when they are involved in an activity. Does this come easily to you? If so, share your secret. If not, how might you improve your patient waiting skills?
7. Ms. Vella says "we teach the way we were taught." (pg 72) How were you taught? Were your role models ones you admired or detested? What are you passing on to others?
8. Is an "examination" in your classroom a way "to test knowledge, skills, or attitudes?" (pg 74) In what ways can you verify that students "know that they know" without giving an examination? What does "engagement in significant work" mean? Would your evaluation methods stand up to scrutiny under federal and state-mandated accountability standards?
9. How are roles defined in your classroom, and how is that clarification communicated to students? (pg 74) Who holds what roles and how have those roles changed over the last three months? Six months?
10. When a student interrupts your lesson with a question relating to the material you are teaching about at that time what do you do? When the question concerns something discussed several days/weeks ago what do you do? When the question has nothing to do with any past instruction what do you do?
11. What "aha! moment" (pg 76) do you most enjoy remembering? What was happening just before, during and after that moment? Is it possible to structure your classroom instruction so "aha! moments" occur more frequently? What changes would you need to make in your present methods to increase those golden moments for your students?

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