I’m with Sean…I don’t remember the in-class discussion, so maybe it was the day we were both absent.
As far as the article goes, I’m not totally sure yet what I think about it. I agree that respecting your teacher and peers inside (and out of) the classroom is extremely important, but I don’t, however, see the importance of teaching general etiquette to a group of college students. My idea of correct etiquette (as a girl) is using the right fork or spoon and making sure you send those personal hand-written ‘thank you’ cards when you get wedding gifts, but I’m also one to somewhat rebel (or at least cross the line) when it comes to ‘correct’ etiquette. I don’t know which fork to use and frankly, I don’t care J.
So, maybe this sociology teacher’s definition of etiquette in this context is simply teaching or reminding college kids to respect their authority as well as each other. If this is the case, then I’m totally fine with that. Kids do need to learn to respect their teachers and their classmates.
There is one more thing that I want to mention in the article. The article quotes, “Ideally, parents and family should be responsible for teaching good habits in early childhood, Moon said. What a child learns at the dinner table, the supermarket and during holiday visits will translate into the classroom and the world at large, she said. “ She does say ideally here, but come on….How many kids these days are really learning manners from their parents? I’m guessing the percentage is quite low. So, she makes a valid point in wanting to teach respect in her sociology classroom.
And I completely agree with Sean that cultural manners should be taught in an ESL classroom. I also think that manners can be addressed as they come up as well. If a student does or says something that is offensive (inadvertently), I think it should be ‘coached.’ As a shift manager at Starbucks, we are taught to coach in the moment, meaning when something happens that shouldn’t happen, try to address it (maturely) sooner rather than later b/c people will learn a better lesson this way. I think this can also transfer to the classroom as well. We as teachers might be able to pull a student aside and give them a little ‘mini lesson’ on manners.
That is an interesting point when taken with Sean's eraser example. That is, if something does come up in the classroom that seems culturally inappropriate like taking someone else's eraser without asking do you
ReplyDelete1) use that as a lauch board to discuss other areas or stick strictly to the cultural point at the time; and,
2) do you want to wait until someone steals an eraser to bring it up if you know there might be the chance, in case it doesn't come up in your class.
I think certainly plagiarism issues and cultural points of writing can be agreed upon as being taught in the classroom. However, I have not noticed any major decline in behavior in classrooms from when I was younger.
To be honest, I am reminded of an article when I was in Japan (although I don't have the cite with me) noting that when the teacher showed usually high respect for students then behavior in the classroom was better. For example, being at the door during the minutes before class when students were entering to greet them when they entered one by one (especially at the first class) and have a good spot prepared for students to take off their shoes (this was Japan) etc.
I think this might be especially important in a low level ESL class where a very intelligent person might be learning very basic phrases and therefore already in a vulnerable position. I think it is this reason I probably would not teach "manners" to my students (that am I don't want to insert my own biases which I think teachers sometimes do too freely).
However, I am wondering if framing it as a what do you do in your culture kind of question might be appropriate. Or working it into lessons on making requests (for example, you want to use a neighbor's eraser, how do you do that?). Rather than framing it as you are going to learn "manners" today and here is the book on it. I also wonder about singling someone out to "teach" them manners at the time something comes up if that might not raise affective issues for the student while learning.