They can also rethink their practice, decide on new strategies, engage in dialogues with au-
thors, and enter debates over educational ideas.
The journal that follows was kept by Dawn Brigante for a reflective practice seminar while
she was an English student teacher (supervised by Maureen Murphy). Dawn expressed
many insecurities about her performance in the journal, but an inner strength allowed her to
share them with other student teachers in the class and with this broader audience. In the
journal entries reproduced here, Dawn compares her own experience and ideas with the
ideas and experiences of authors she read in the teacher education program. The journal
has been edited to remove some personal references; however, Dawn and I believe it re-
mains true to the spirit of the original document.
A Student Teacher’s Journey
By Dawn Brigante
Journal Entry 1: I am having a lot of doubts.
Rereading Linda Christensen’s “Building Community from Chaos” now that I am a student
teacher, I can relate a lot easier to what she has to say. My first placement is in a racially and
ethnically diverse middle school, and I am becoming more aware that some of the students
in my classes have different needs than others, like the ones I grew up with in my segre-
gated, white, middle-class community. I hear teachers talk about the “baggage” kids carry to
school with them, and I am definitely beginning to see it for myself. But I won’t use this an ex-
cuse to give up on my students.
I am starting to understand how Linda feels when she goes into a classroom expecting to
accomplish specific academic goals and is not being able to achieve any of them. Like Linda,
I am learning that content must sometimes take a back seat to children’s needs. This isn’t a
bad thing, especially when it creates a “teachable moment” in class. Reaching students is
more important to me than insisting that the class strictly adhere to the day’s agenda.
I strongly believe teachers must provide students with opportunities to talk about the an-
ger and sadness in their lives. Often it is considered unacceptable to express feelings such
as sadness, depression and anger in school. That is how students learn to bottle-up their
emotions, but they can only bottle them up for so long before they explode. Teachers and
students should work together to design curricula and choose literature to read based on
the interests of students.
When I have my own classroom, I hope to use Linda’s suggestions for breaking down
walls and stereotypes among students and creating classroom communities. It is important
that students talk to one another. Many think they know everything they need to know
about their peers: whose parents are divorced, who has no parents, who hangs out with the
“wrong” crowd. They think that their first judgment is the final word. But when they get to
really know others, when they find out that everyone has his or her own story, that every-
one feels pain, and experiences hardships and joys, they will think twice before doing any-
thing hurtful or selfish.
I like Linda’s idea of having older students teach lessons to elementary school children.
The opportunity to act as role models provides positive experiences for the teenagers and
for the younger students. Having high school students rewrite children’s books is a good
way for students to express their understanding of the world, a world in which happy end-
ings are not handed out on a silver platter; they must be struggled for and sometimes they
never occur.
258 CHAPTER 10