Educational Autobiography

Table of Contents

1.Leaving the Bagel on the Dashboard, or a first lesson in self-sufficiency (Pre-School)

2. Calling my 2nd Grade Teacher Torica, or adventures in progressive elementary school (Pre-K–2)

3.The Oregon Trail, or exploring and loving public school (3-5)

4. Volleying, or let’s just not talk about it (6-7)

5. Losing Letters, or how to memorize a sonnet (8)

6. Stay Cool, Soda Pop, or how to stop crying over physics tests (9-12)

7. The Best Years of Your Life, or coming home to Bryn Mawr (Present)

Chapter 1

It started with a series of presents a wooden carving of an Icelandic horse, a fleece-lined sleeping bag, and a plain cloth book.  I used the pony to model for an updated photograph of myself as a ballet dancer waiting for the annual recital to begin.  I tested the sleeping bag in my car, in 16oF weather, in a strange rest stop.  But the book was a problem.  What to do with a book I can’t read?  After accepting the help of Google Translate, I found out the title, Ritsafn, and author, Olof Sigurdardottir, of my book.  I looked for a translation, none exists; there isn’t a lot of Icelandic literature translated into English, I learned.  Her book, it looks is out of print in Icelandic alas.  Interestingly, my book is a collection of poetry and fairy tales, the third and final published work of a woman farmer writer.  That her husband was a carpenter formed the basis for my poem comparing the author to myself.  My carpenter (the presenter) seemed satisfied.  I was still curious.  This is the story of how I decided to start a series of homophonic translations of my book.

1. Preschool: Learning about Colors
2. Elementary School: Birds, Earthworms and Bees
3. Elementary School: Rollerblading
4. Elementary School: Pokemon Cards

Learning about Colors

This chapter discusses an altercation that I had with a student in preschool. I was being picked on and I lashed out by kicking a redheaded boy in the shin. During this altercation, I first became aware of my status as a minority in the school.

I seemed to have been oblivious to that fact for some time. In my mind, I saw the redheaded boy as an easy target; he may have been laughing at me because of my pale, yellow skin, but I fought back easily because he was no less unique than me, with his red hair and his freckles. To others, I was an easy target because I was so physically different from them. My skin color, my eyes and nose, all showed that I was not like the majority of my classmates. After the fight, I remember an older student from the elementary school entering my classroom after recess and reporting the incident to my teacher. I was being picked on, yet I was sent to time-out. The title of this chapter is a reference to race and the colors of our skin and hair. Being one of the few Asian students in the class, I was quickly aware of such characteristics and now wonder why these were never a topic of discussion in class.

Maddy Beckmann
January 29, 2013
Table of Contents of my Education

Seven Schools in Thirteen Years

I. School #1: My Montessori Education, All I remember is making bread...
II. School #2: My Co-ed Catholic Education, I am not catholic...
III. School #3: My Public Education: Too many kids in my class...
IV. School #4: My Experiencial Education: Taking Ownership of My Learning...

Standing up at the podium with a hundred people in front of my I opened my mouth to speak. I am the last of my class to speak to the audience. At this point 27 students have gone before me and I know I must try to keep the audience’s attention for just one more speech. I opened my mouth to speak my first speech in front of an audience. It was easy. I spoke about my love for people and for helping them. I spoke about making the world a better place and what I love to do. I finished the speech and was greeted by the first standing ovation of my class.

Chapter One: Megan learns that schools can be shut down when they are too small and she is forced to move schools. 
Chapter Two: Megan attends English public school and spends most of her time pretending to twist her ankle at playtime to escape the cold outside
Chapter Three: Megan moves to the U.S. and learns the ‘Pledge of Allegiance.
Chapter Four: Megan goes to her first summer camp.
Chapter Five: Megan enrols at a Steiner school.
Chapter Six: Megan goes to ‘Hawk Circle’ with her class to learn how to survive in the wild.
Chapter Seven: Megan joins the ‘Midnight Run’ and is awakened to how the homeless live.
Chapter Eight: Megan does a ‘study abroad’ in Paris during her sophomore year of high-school.
Chapter Nine: Megan visits ‘Camphill’ which is a Steiner community and school for severely mentally handicapped children and adults. 
Chapter Ten: Megan writes a letter to a teacher after finding a class the teacher taught to be inappropriate and incorrect and the teacher redoes the class the next day. 
Chapter Eleven: Megan does shoemaking for her senior project and learns a trade.
Chapter Twelve: Megan learns in her Emily Balch Seminar Freshmen year from another student that the idea of being ‘color-blind’ is not a good thing like her all-white environment had previously taught her.

Chapter Thirteen: Megan learns that not everyone thinks that a Liberal Arts education is a good thing, or even the idea of going to college. She struggles with the privilege of these opportunities.

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Field Notes – Week 7

More than a week away and the students are really excited about Winter Break – making them somewhat distracted at doing work.            - I wonder if there is a way to involve holiday festivities in student assignments/work? Maybe if the break was acknowledge in class rather than ignored it might make the students more excited about some of their work?

Students are working more on grammar – reading from packets together as a class  - These workbook packets always kind of bother me. I realize that they are necessary but I wonder if maybe they could just be graded to see how the students are doing rather than have them as the driving activity because students ere clearly bored going through this and didn’t seem to really be learning so much as just reciting things. 

Only the same student keeps raising his hand to answer. Mrs. Smith keeps calling on him asking, “how come no one else is awake today?” - I think this also speaks to the set up of the packet and the student’s interest. I talked with the student who was really excited to answer later in the class and he said that he wanted to impress Mrs. Smith. He didn’t talk about his love or enjoyment of the class material.

For my first reading response (on the first half of the Freire, Pedagogy of the oppressed text) I took a broader look at the text, instead of picking a specific passage.  Therefore, I will be responding to the first half of the text as a whole. 

            Having read Freire excerpts in previous classes I was prepared for ‘Pedagogy of the oppressed’ to be a dense text.  In reading the first half I was confused by his argument in relation to his text.  It appeared almost hypocritical.  Freire spends the first few chapters discussing the relationship between the oppressed, and the oppressors, the relationship between teachers and students, and finally the purpose and characteristics of dialogue.