Every year during the school year, the Saint Michael's College Education Department has a book that is required for all education majors to read, and often organize events for students to participate it based around the book. The book that was focused on this semester was Same Sun Here written by Silas House and Neela Vaswani. One event that was organized was a visit from one of the authors, Neela Vaswani. The event allowed for Neela to discuss her book, and allowed for questions to be asked by students, which varied from how the writing process went about, to personal background influencing the book, and ways to teach about the book and its themes. The most intriguing aspect of the panel discussion was the process in which the book was written. Both authors wrote letters to each other as their characters to create the story. The letters created an interesting dialogue between the characters, and by doing the same thing in real life, the authors were able to make the scenarios and writing even more realistic.
Looking at our Performance Criteria, or PCs, I believe the event best connects with PC 10.1: Candidates are prepared to collaborate with stakeholders (such as learners, families, colleagues, other school officials, or community members) to ensure student learning, as well as 9.1: Candidates are prepared for self-directed, continuous professional learning. The professional nature of the panel allowed for all students attending to gain insight on teaching strategies that could be used in the future, while exploring themes that may be pursued by students in their future classrooms. The event also allow myself and other students to engage in dialogue with the author to discuss teaching strategies that she used for the book and learned other teachers were using with the book and its themes. Along with this, my classmates and I worked to create lessons to teach the book and draw on various themes within the book. For example, I worked with another student to create a unit that would incorporate the theme of immigration with the subjects of Social Studies and English, which incorporated social impacts of immigration as well as poems and pieces of literature written by and about immigrants.
When reflecting on this experience, I can find two major takeaways. The first is the importance of varying perspective. Having created lessons looking at a specific theme using various subjects to enhance understanding and learning of the topic, I've understood how important perspective can be in the classroom. Many topics have often been looked at through only one lens, and often hinders opportunities for creative learning. This also, especially in a Social Studies aspect, creates one dimensional thinking in regards to politics, philosophy, and free thought, which can hinder growth and individual thinking and decision making, which is crucial for students as they develop into adults. Looking at the book and understanding how many ways the themes within it can be interpreted can spark creative thinking in any student's mind who reads it, and by showing students that all information can and should be looked at in this way can inspire thought-provoking discussion and thinking in any classroom.
The second major takeaway from the Same Sun Here Panel is the importance of collaboration. Collaboration with other students and outside resources enhances learning by communicating with sources that might normally not used by students, thus losing more chances to find varying perspectives on topics. The collaboration between the authors of the books also shows the strength in finding unique was to work together to achieve something. Students can find ways to create their own ways to learn by working together and discovering information on their own, making the experience personal. This sparks individual thinking that can be worthwhile to all students as they grow and progress throughout their lives.
