Learning Letter

To whom it may concern,

In the past three months I have made major changes to my educational plans and my future overall. Part of that came from my time spent in my Teaching Literature to Adolescents class. This class helped me realize quite a few things about myself. The most important of which is that I am not cut out to be a teacher and that is OK! I have been struggling with this realization for well over a year now and it has been a major source of my depression and anxiety.  I found myself waking up every morning hating what I was doing. My only solace came from being a part of this class. While it's true that I never intend to become a teacher, I do find studying education to be terribly fascinating. seeing what works for teachers and what strategies are best for students has been one of the highlights of my time in the field of education.
I always enjoyed giving book reports. This was one of the few things that I remember about my learning in elementary and middle school. So I really connected with the book talk assignment. It's funny though, I always used to get into trouble for spoiling the end of the story, but for this assignment, it was a requirement. I love getting to talk about books, and delving into why I enjoy a specific book or series with people around me. However, this assignment also made me take a critical look into why I feel certain texts would be valuable in the classroom and how a teacher might go about using said text. That's what made this assignment challenging.
Over the course of this class, we discussed a variety of texts from educational theories to our favorite sci-fi novels and I thoroughly enjoyed those aspect of the course. However, it was these things that I enjoyed which ultimately made me realize the one area in which I am most lacking. When I develop a lesson, a project, or an assignment, I lack the necessary creativity to make a cohesive plan. sure, we discussed multiple texts and looked at some great theory, but I have no innate ability to put these things into practice. I simply lack the ability to connect these theories and ideas with lesson plans or how to make them applicable to students. I don't know why this is, but I just can't seem to make the necessary connections and that really bothers me. But now that i am pursuing a different career and a different degree, I can look back on this class and say that I am glad I was able to discover this about myself. I enjoyed my time in this class and I felt like I gained a lot of knowledge about myself and what I want to accomplish with my life.

Poe response

I will never forget the first time I read Poe. I was in middle school and we read The Tell-Tale Heart. I remember the teacher really built the guy up. She said his works were gruesome and horrifying! I remember being so excited about that. Like, thinking in my head that this story was going to be like the Saw series of movies, and boy was I dissapointed... I read the first page and felt completely lost! I mean, who was this guy? What was he talking about? I didn't understand a word of it and I really think that killed my love of Poe before it ever really started. Of course, this could have been a result of desensitization, as I distinctly remember that I played DOOM for the first time and I found that scary-as-all-get-out. But Poe? He didn't even register on my scare scale.

I bring this all up, because I think it says something about the human condition and what we find scary and how we, as teachers, can make Poe scary and worth reading again. In The Tell-Tale Heart, the act of cutting up a body and hiding it under floorboards just isn't scary anymore. In a world where physical violence is the norm in almost all forms of entertainment, we can't expect our students to find this horrifying anymore. They have had much worse than that described to them and have seen people ripped to shreds in stunning 1080P resolution. Many of them play video games themselves and are directly responsible for the death of their in-game characters. Subconciously, that has done something to them. Without even realizing it, they're thinking "you cut a body into pieces and hid it? So what? In Mortal Kombat 10 I shoved a man's arms into his body and proceeded to rip his head open at the jaw, and use his tongue for an ash tray". How do we make Poe scary again in a world where what I just described is literally what these students are doing as a means of entertainment in a video game? I don't have an answer, but I think it involves doing something about what we perceive as scary and what is actually scary. For instance, the scene in described above is seen by a majority of people as gruesome, but in no way scary. Most people laugh when they see it, as a matter of fact. So, instead of focusing on the physical violence, why not focus on the psychological horror that is also prevalent throughout the story? I mean, is this guy in The Tell-Tale Heart really crazy? What made him act that way? Did he have a choice? If we can somehow focus on the idea that this man is defenseless against his own insanity, we might have a better chance of returning Poe to his former glory. Or at least, get him off of the "I'm never reading this again" list that students seem to have.