Light snow was falling again this morning as I made my way to campus. This was actually sticking some and a very thin glaze had covered the ground. From the initial looks of things today should have been a very snowy day; however, the snow ceased about the time the sun came up. Guess the sun scared it all away because it stopped snowing and what was down disappeared. Not sure I can say melted; it’s just too cold to melt, so I am just going to say the snow disappeared.
This morning was a series of small meetings with students who were interested in travelling/studying abroad for short terms. I met with members of the administration last week to lay initial plans for possible visits to NSU and Cherokee Nation. Today, after a brief general discussion in an assembly hall, I had two sessions in a classroom wherein interested students listened to me sing the praises of NSU and the CN. Between the two sessions there may have been 75 students. There were several who seemed genuinely interested; one even asked me, “Can I go home with you and start as soon as we get there?” I like that enthusiasm. A few students even asked me if they could come on their own during certain times they had off from school, perhaps a shorter time than the planned group activities, and if they could just observe some NSU classes. Of course I said I would help them plan that. I’m thinking there may be an influx of Danes to NSU. May eventually have our own “Little Esbjerg” community in Tahlequah. I wonder if Tahlequah and Esbjerg would consider becoming “sister cities?” Think I might just propose that to the City Council once I return home.
Following the study abroad sessions I had some down time; I was not in a class until the fourth period so I used that time to work on several small tasks I have forthcoming or currently pressing. Most of these were outlines or pre-plans. Many of my students, especially those working on their Master’s Thesis, have heard my motto for serious writing and academic matters: plan to plan, plan, then execute the plan. Within any good plan will be built-in “wiggle” room. In other words good plans plan for the unexpected and will have some malleability. These should then be evaluated and assessed along the way so adjustments may be made if necessary. Well, that is what I was doing with my time.
So, now that you have the Hannah Plan on Plans, how about that afternoon class? It went well; guess what I taught. Yep, my buddy Robert Conley and “Witch of Goingsnake.” This is the final session of “Witch.” Several classes got this short story and all seemed to enjoy the discussions coming from it. I have noticed that many of these students had difficulty grasping the imaginative workings within the story; they were thinking too linearly. Getting them outside their comfort zones was a challenge, but no more so than with many American students. Here in Denmark I think it is because this is their first time with such literature and they are not experienced with such a genre as Native American Lit. In the US, however, I think it is a result of No Child Left Behind. Students there are not interested in creative thinking; why would they be if it is not on the high stakes tests they must take every ten minutes? And how (or why) would teachers teach creative thinking if their jobs depend on students scoring well on the high stakes tests? Get rid of NCLB America, and I think you will see improvement in critical and creative thinking skills. But that’s just my opinion – I could be wrong.
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