Toulmin and Teachers

Most Americans are guided by teachers through a significant portion of their lives. These teachers are put in positions to mold and shape who students can become. Still, the teaching profession faces hard times on the status ladder. A teacher shortage plagues our nation. We can partly thank the low respect for the teaching profession as a whole. As a nation, we must find ways to change this view of one of the most important professions in the cultivation of our future.

Vern Williams presents a solution in his Internet response to this dilemma. I agree with him in saying that allowing teachers more control in the curriculum and the practices of the classroom will help to raise the status of teachers. Curriculum for schools is largely determined by groups in the government of teachers who may or may not still be practicing. Students are changing, and teaching methods need to be changing with them. Who better to invent and implement these changes than teachers who are interacting with students every day? Teachers who have seen the times change and have kept up with innovations. Teachers who could have revolutionary ideas about how to teach this new "YouTube generation" of students with attention spans as long as a YouTube video. If teachers were allowed to control what and how they taught more directly, they could teach the material better and be more appreciated for it.

Some may say that if teachers were given such freedom, students would not learn what is needed. I am not saying that standardized curriculum should be thrown out the window. I am saying that teachers who want to implement new ways to teach that curriculum should be lauded and allowed to do so. If they can make the necessary learning more stimulating for students, we can raise a generation of students who will remember fondly their teachers. These students could then be inspired to grow their own ideas on learning. This would be a welcome change from teachers in my school who teach only the state-set material using state-given textbooks with state-written worksheets and nothing else. Sure this may teach students to pass the state standardized tests, but that is about it.

Those teachers are not the ones who are remembered. I will remember my innovative teachers: the one who challenges us, but still makes us feel like he is our friend; the one who let us pick what broad, real-world topics we were interested in and then taught the concepts based on those; the one who created a role-playing game to teach us the ever important, timeless concepts of history. These are the teachers that inspire me.

The Great Gatsby

Using The Great Gatsby as a channel, Fitzgerald presents his views on America and the prosperity she experienced in the 1920s. His hopeless reflection through the narrator Nick on the last page of the book analyzes the American mindset about the past and the future. He suggests that though we try valiantly to move forward and modernize our world, we can never out do the wonder that nature provided originally. The future may seem bright and accessible, but all we can do is let destiny run its coarse.



The Old World descriptions illuminate the reader's imagination with images of youth and joy. When the narrator lost himself in the island, the man-made structures faded away leaving the memory of the old island. Fitzgerald alluded to the landing of Dutch sailors in America, the first foreigners to do so. The beauty of this new land inspired them, filling them with dreams, desire, "wonder." The "fresh, green" land stood untouched by humans for them and "flowered" by only the graces of nature. The diction of the passage makes readers feel they can see the glorious land that could be captured in a breathless "enchanted moment" and hear the personified trees speaking softly.



In contrast, when Nick returns to his modern island, he sees "inessential houses," "dark fields" of struggles, and the ghosts of the glory of the past. He acknowledges how humans strive toward that "orgastic future" but can never quite get there. That imaginary ideal eludes us every time, and we strive ever harder to catch up. In his intentional fragment in the second to last paragraph, Fitzgerald builds up the excitement and hope for the success of the future. Then, it suddenly stops. The fragment brings us back to Earth where we can never achieve as much glory as we desire. Fitzgerald compares humans to boats who can try ceaselessly to row against the current but always find themselves pushed back, maybe even farther back than where they started.



The 1920s were filled with extravagance and wealth, and this is demonstrated in The Great Gatsby. Throughout the book, however, Fitzgerald uses his characters to bring that high-life mentality back down to Earth. He reminds us that success and development do not always mean happiness. He reminds us that excessive spending or partying does not always make us friends. He also reminds us of the beauty of the natural world, a world that we did not touch.

"My Wood" Screencast

Here's my screencast on "My Wood"