Week 11
Thursday, November 24th, 2022
Things to See in Week 11: Book Inquiry Presentations
Slide presentation from Courage to Teach: Exploring the Inner Landscape of a Teacher's Life, written by Parker J. Palmer
Reflection
Resources
Reflection
In Week 11 we finally were able to present our Book Inquiry on The Courage to Teach. This presentation was created with Slides Go using their free template. I chose this template early on in our readings because the other three people in our group were working and I had more time. Rox Hayward, Dan Sooley, and Kyle Trivett were glad that I chose the slides and outlined our presentation. When our last two meetings arrived (we worked for over two hours for meetings 9 and 10 to complete the basic presentation), we could simply insert what we wanted our parts to say based on the chapters we read. It is easy to see Dan's humour shining through many of the slides with his clever subtitle on the first and the trademark heads throughout. I love the idea of putting a name to the face so I added Gholdy Muhammad's and Janette Hughes' faces to one of my slides as well.
I must admit, with encouragement from Dan and Rox, I picked the book. I acquired copies of all of the books so that I could choose wisely. I knew there were only three of us, and two are very busy so I chose the book that had a more chatty feel and didn’t seem too heavy, like Teaching to Transgress did. Kyle joined us soon after, signing up under our book because, as he said, we were the first ones to sign up so he felt we would be good partners who would get the work done on time. On the first day of reading The courage to Teach, Dan texted me to let me know how much he despised my choice of text.
I didn’t mind the book, or the theme of the book. I read a fair bit about Parker Palmer, the author so that I could better understand his point of view. It helped. It didn’t help Dan, who to my amusement, kept on talking about the book and how little it was appreciated. Like the rest of us, he did work to get his questions done early so that we could think about our answers before the meetings. So there was Dan who didn’t want to read the book and has an active little one who pops up at unexpected times, Kyle who lost a family member and has two little ones at home but found a way to rearrange our meetings so that he could contribute his thoughts, Rox who is single-parenting my little Henry, learning the ropes at a new school as Vice-Principal and generally running on not enough sleep, and me who works around chronic health conditions with a Sweetie who is doing the same. I am proud of this little group who rose above the obstacles to finish with a job well done. And sometimes, that's a big deal.
Teaching To Transgress slides by Sheryll, Abdul, and Audrey. I have left them here because I enjoyed their presentaiton and to remind me that this is the book I will be reading next - so they aren't really part of my reflection but here they are regardless!
