Teaching by Living

Granpa gives a lot of good advice to Little Tree throughout this book, but he treats wisdom with more than mere lip service. I noticed in the chapter on church-going and in other spots in the reading that Granpa regularly practices what he preaches. He showed the man how to make the chair that he gave to him. Little Tree explained that Granpa always believed that showing a feller how to do something himself was better than just giving to him.
As teachers we must practice what we teach. Do I put on a mask when I go into the classroom that smiles and loves the students? This actually seems easy enough, but soon the act would grow old and we would seek a different line of work. The type of teachers we want to be in the classroom should also be the type of people we want to be in our homes and relationships. Especially as health teachers, we should be an example of healthy living. We shouldn't get plastered on the weekends or take up chain smoking to cope with the stress of being a teacher. We should live a physically active life and wear a seatbelt and wash our hands and cough into our elbows. Teaching health isn't just presenting curriculum, it's presenting a healthy way of life. As members of the church are admonished to be living examples of the blessings of the gospel and testify of those blessings and from whence they came, we as health teachers should be shining examples of the healthy way of life we teach and advocate a healthy way of life to our students.

Trust, Risk and Learning

Granpa's trade is whiskey making and considers himself pretty good at it. Since it's the only trade he knows, he teaches this trade to Little Tree (five years old at the time). Leaving the still one day, a couple of men were set out on the path and they had to hide the still and split up so Granpa could get away with the bulk of the wares. Little Tree was confronted and chased by the men, but made it back home safely to find Granpa and Granma waiting for him. In another chapter Little Tree bought a calf from a "Christian man" for $.50, which died on the way home from town. Granpa explained that if he would have stopped him from buying it, Little Tree would have always looked back on the day feeling sore at Granpa. If he would have told him to buy it, he would have blamed the calf dying (and losing the $.50) on Granpa. "Ye'll have to learn as ye go."
The close call coming back from the still and the poor trade with a Christian really cemented Granpa and Granma's teaching methods for me. They knew that Little Tree would encounter these situations in life and did not hide from it. In fact, I believe that they expected him to find him self in a similar jam later on in life and that he would need to make a decision then as well. Although only five years old, they were not going to sheild him from the world, they were willing to let him experience it. It's hard to believe that you can give a kid money and not expect him to spend it. Or give him responsibility in an illegal whiskey operation and not expect him to run into trouble at some point. Granma and Granpa knew the risks associated with allowing Little Tree to be an active participant in their family; to be his own, really. I take them as folks who can assess risks in life. The way they let Little Tree learn was not without risks, but the most protective way of learning doesn't come without risks itself.
We have no choice as health educators but to teach according to the political safeguards made by policymakers, local education administrators and school boards. This makes it difficult sometimes to be as effective as we'd like. We must trust that there is enough education going on in the home, church or other auxillary institution that our teaching is not necessary. But really, the only subject safeguarded in sexuality education, and we have free reign over the rest of the course. We aren't the parents and cannot protect them from the real world even if we wanted to. Many high schools are more like the real world from which some of kids are being protected than the city streets are. This is why it's important to teach health effectively and efficiently in the junior high and high schools, because parents may not be enough to prevent unhealty lifestyles, and in some cases promote them.

New Year, New Reading List

I think it's perfectly normal to keep a journal of what you read on your blog. I'm pretty sure people do this on other blogs and have entire book clubs where you can participate by commenting on the lead reader's post of a chapter. In fact, I'm doing this in one of my classes this semester. In my Practicum and Curriculum class we're reading the book The Education of Little Tree (Forrest Carter), and for every reading our professor makes a post and we all post comments of something we learned from the readings on it as part of a pass/fail assignment. I like this because I'm sure that I'd do the same thing on my own while reading the book. The book is written about an orphaned five year old Native American who goes to live with his grandparents out in the mountains. The book is great, and I'd recommend it to any and all. I figure I might as well share what I'm learning on my blog, too, because that's what I usually do when I'm not excited about concerts or complaining about sports, politics and the politics of sports.

So the book consists of Little Tree recounting experiences and learning moments with Granpa and Granma. You can tell right off that Granpa is the star of this book. From the second page when Little Tree says, "Granpa seldom spoke in a crowd, but when he did, folks listen," you knew that he would be saying things that you'd want to remember. So far that's been the extent of everyone's posts on our class blog, words of wisdom from Granpa, as well as his incredible ability to teach powerful lessons based on simple observations of nature and society.
In chapter two, while catching turkeys together, Granpa taught Little Tree about The Cherokee Way. I was impressed with Granpa's assessment of Little Tree learning The Way. He told Little Tree how animals in nature select their prey, and how in doing so they can support their livelihood in the future. After explaining the principle he then allows Little Tree to select the turkeys they would take home with them. As teachers we must teach and not just test, but help our students understand that their understanding of the subject will effect the way they make decisions in life (something a geometry teacher rarely has the opportunity to do). In addistion, we must also let them feel capable of making decisions based on what we have taught them. After teaching Little Tree, he expressed his good faith in Little Tree's understanding of The Way in giving him an opportunity to live The Way.
This type of teaching is especially important to us as health teachers. The quality of our teaching is not so much based on the grades our students get on tests, but on the number of sexually active or pregnant students in the school, or the percent of students who drink, smoke or use drugs, or their body image and nutrition. We must be able to not just effect a student's academic acheivement, but also their lifestyle. Granpa shows a good example of this by letting Little Tree make the choice himself.

I also would like to post entries on other books I'm reading this semester. One that I'm reading right now is called Red China Blues by Jan Wong. Expect to hear about that one until the end of the month when a report on it is due. But it doesn't end there; I had to buy over a dozen books for this semester and only a handful are pure textbooks, so I've got some good material for postings.