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Full Written TranscriptDownload Full Written Transcript in MS Word Reading Between The Lives: Transcript
Table Of Contents
(Note: For PCs, press ctrl+F to find section by title. For Macs, press the apple key+F)
Preface....................................................................................3 Reading Environment…………………………………....4 When Reading Is Assigned...................................................5 Why Not Ask……………......................................................9 Textbooks..............................................................................12 Reading Tips.........................................................................14 Background...........................................................................18 What I’d Rather Do ……………………………………….21 Self-Esteem............................................................................22 Student Responsibility..........................................................24 Teacher Responsibility.........................................................27 The Bond...............................................................................31 Hot Tips For Teacher...........................................................33 Epilogue..................................................................................36
Preface
Chase: I wanna be an astronaut (repeat)
Matt: When I was younger, I would say that I had a lot of things I wanted to do, cause little kids, they want to do everything.
Ivone: Everybody, when they’re little, they have their own little things like, “Oh, I want to be a firefighter” or “I want to be a policeman – I want to be an astronaut”. My biggest thing was, I wanted to be a doctor.
Jamie: So what made you want to come to college?
Nicole: Because I wanted to do music so bad.
Carla: I’m going to Chabot to become a nurse.
Michael: I’m trying to study for graphic design.
Darryl: I just want to be part of the solution. I’m here to become a psychologist.
C.J.: Something in psychotherapy.
Laricia: To be a teacher.
Matt: Probably be an actor.
Melvin: I’m here for the betterment of myself and also to provide a better life for my children. I might as well shoot for the stars and go for my business degree.
Christian: I just go to college cause I know that’s where the money is. You have to go to college.
(main title: “Reading Between The Lives” Chabot Students Talk About Reading, And More…) Reading environment
Leonard: I'll pick a nice, quiet room and read. And I don't have no music on, no TV or anything.
James: Well, I need it as silent as possible.
Shirley: But if there's noise, I just can't read, I can't focus. It's either ADD, or whatever.
Matt: I'm usually distracted, there's people walking around, and I'm looking at what they're doing.
Jennifer: That's a huge thing with daydreaming. Cause I'm sitting there reading, and all of the sudden... "I've got to do this for dinner...", you know? I just start thinking of different things, and then I have no idea what I've read.
Kalif: I'm hungry. (laughs) TV. Going to that party on Friday... very distracting.
Shawn: Who's that girl in the club on Saturday?
Kalif: Who just texted me on my phone five minutes ago?
Michael: If I hear a little music, it'll keep me -- I don't know, like I can read to a rhythm or something (laughs).
Jessica: Sometimes, I'll listen to music. Except for when its a song that I know -- I'll start singing it, and forget about the whole reading thing...
Michael: I need some kind of -- I need some noise around me of some sort.
Carla: See, I'm the opposite (laughs). I need it quiet. So you should come to my house, and I'll go to yours.
When Reading Is Assigned
(pause) and
then they’d talk about a whole different assignment.
Bio Student # 1: They say “read chapters 15 - 18.” And you’re just kind of
like, “what do I look for? What should I focus on?”
Shawn: The only way they instruct you on reading is “read pages 8-10.”
Matt: But if I’m not in the mood to do it, I’ll just do it half way, and my
assignments won’t come out as good.
Shirley: You be wanting to read to and I just be like you know you’re just
like a... It’s going through one ear and out the other.
Megan: Well what I was going to do last night, but I was too tired, was at
least finish the chapter after I was in the middle of it. So that way, I
felt like I accomplished something. Which is something I’m going to
hopefully, maybe try and do before my math class.
Mack: Well I lag, lag until, almost like, the last day.
(If the students have
struggled with the reading or haven’t don’t it at all—What Happens?)
Lydia: Oh God, I don’t want to go.
Mack: They talking about this, and I don’t know what they talkin’ about. So
I’m feeling far and left behind.
Ivone: Yeah. Why Not Ask
Shawn: Why don’t we ask teachers for help?... Honestly, I don’t – that’s a question that may go, or may not answer sometimes, cause, why don’t we ask teachers for help?
Leonard: They don’t want to feel like they’re stupid.
Steve: I’m not gonna raise my hand & have everybody look at me like, “oh, what an idiot, dumbass” or something…
Mack: They feel, probably embarrassed.
Katrina: You’re in class, and you’re just trying to blend in with everyone. You’re trying to fit in -- most students are.
Leonard: They’re just afraid to ask questions in class.
Matt: Usually the male-ego thing will get involved, and I don’t want to raise my hand and act like I don’t know what I’m talking about…. The male ego is, I guess it’s the guy taking the classic not wanting to take directions, and I feel like if I have to ask directions, then I’m straying off the path. And maybe that’s a sign that I’m being weak…. I don’t think that teachers even factor that into their students. They probably don’t analyze it in that way, like, “Hey, this is a male student, and maybe he’s not willing to open up and say he can’t do this.”
Neal: When you ask a question, you better ask something very intelligent, cause if you ask a dumb question… most likely, the students are going to laugh around you. Or the teacher will make you feel like you’re pretty inferior; “you should have read that” or “you should’ve known that back in high school” – you know, they say that stuff, “oh, that’s grade school stuff”…. If I don’t know something, I feel like maybe I’m kind of dumb or something….
Monique: Is that what happened in your other classes, you ended up feeling stupid?...
Liz: Yeah, I did. And, you just feel really awkward. Cause a lot of people don’t understand: They think you’re being lazy, and you’re not taking the time to…. (heavy breath in, holds tears) People don’t understand how hard it is. It really is. And everybody’s telling you that, “You’re so lazy, cause you’re not trying.”
Maryanne: Its negative from the get-go…. They don’t want to feel stupid, or less educated. Nobody wants to feel that.
(Could the fear of being considered “STUPID” really be that prevalent?) Liz: You’re so stupid…. Matt: Feel stupid or something…. Shawn: You feel stupid… Melissa: The stupid ones…. C.J.: And I’m stupid….
Darryl: Panic attacks (repeat)
(OK, not all students worry about being considered STUPID – some students worry about “PANIC ATTACKS”) Kalif: Cause most teachers, I don’t have a good student teacher relationship with, so if I talk to them, they’ll be like, “What, are you serious – this is college, you’re asking me how to read? I can’t help you, you should have learned that in eighth grade. Sorry, I can’t really help you out there.” Bio Student #3: Sometimes, I’ve attempted to read something, and I’ll read it over and over and I still can’t understand what they’re trying to explain – and that’s when the teacher is needed. Because its like, “okay, now I need you to explain this because I’ve read it, and I don’t understand it.” Melissa: Some teachers, man, they’ll come in and start lecturing; they won’t even set their stuff down. They’ll just come rapid fire, and they won’t stop ‘till one minute before the class gets over…. And its like, if I have the time, and I’m confused, I’ll ask them, but if they don’t give me that opportunity, then I can’t stand up and yell that I need help. Carla: It just seems like they’re always in a hurry. And they’re rushing to get to the next class, and they never really have time. When I had my math teacher, I would hunt her down (repeat) and make her sit and talk to me, and explain to me. Katrina: Well, hey, why am I going to even bother if you don’t give a rat’s behind if you help me or not, or if I’m getting the material? Bio Student #4: I’ve pretty much given up going to teachers. And that’s not just because of the college experience, but just, teachers in general, I’ve found, aren’t as helpful as I’d like.
Karishma: Everybody has a question, so… I don’t think the teacher can actually help, if they’re doing their best to explain what’s going on.
Christina: Wait, you don’t think the teacher can help you?
Karishma: Not right – this is my own problem. The teacher can’t do anything about it.
Christina: Do you think that your teachers here at Chabot are sympathetic to your situation?
Nicole: No.
Christina: Do you feel that they understand at all?
Nicole: Uh-uh. I don’t think so…. No, they don’t really try to help me, honestly. They just expect me to do… like normal. They don’t understand like, if I ask them, that I don’t know what the assignment means, they’ll be like, “it’s easy, you can do it”. And then they just send me out.
(Students speaking in Korean. The scroll reads: Nicole and these other students are speaking directly to teachers – telling them how they feel about not being helped with their reading. But unless you speak Korean… right now, you have no idea what is going on.)
Textbooks
(“Pretty Bored” – Textbook Remix)
Melissa: No, I didn’t say teachers are ignorant, I said, teachers are ignorant if they think--they would be ignorant if they think that all students read their text all the time.
Nick: I’ve seen people that bought a text book, and then end up dropping the class because they haven’t read what… looked, or even opened the text book up.
Melissa: I bought four textbooks this semester, and they still have the shrink wrap on them.
Claire: I didn’t buy my biology book and I passed the class with an A. And I’ve done that so many times, where I’ve just floated through and gotten an A, and I haven’t even touched the book once. I didn’t even buy the book.
Carla: The kids were like, “Well I’m not buying the book cause it’s too expensive.” And they won’t buy the book!
Ivone: Man I bought this whole book just to use that one chapter? It’s like man
Claire: It’s a waste of student’s money, and I know Chabot isn’t exactly the richest community around.
Julian: They told me community college was cheap.
Laricia & Ivone: They lied. (repeat).
Julian: I couldn’t imagine a state or UC.
Laricia: God it’s like they’re ripping us off!
Shirley: And if they really don’t need the textbook then they shouldn’t spend hundreds of dollars buying these textbooks when they’re probably not even open it up.
Ivone: That’s the worse thing, you try to sell it back -- you bought it for like a hundred and something, you try to sell it back they give you like.
Christian: You sell it back they give you like a dollar.
Ivone: Yeah, they give you like 20 dollars.
Andrea- They didn’t have it in the bookstore, so I went back and said “it’s not available yet” and she says “Umm… well, you don’t need to read the books, you get the books you don’t need to read ‘em.” ….This one lady, she was pissed. She bought the book, she’s on disabled income, and she was pissed. She was even givin’ the teacher, you know, a little attitude. She says, “Well, well why’d you have me to buy the book if we not gonna use it?”
Neal: Different editions? They’re like, exactly the same from the last edition, except for, they – I found out they put in another page. And that’s it.
Carla: My idea, I have to have the textbook…. I read every book I get.
Sean: Talk about that cause you’re the only one at Chabot, apparently. (laughs)
Michael: I was about to say that.
Megan: I mean, textbooks, I guess are good. I guess they have their benefits. Like it’s all factual and fact and fact and facts…
Lydia: I will use a textbook if I don’t know something, and I need it as a reference.
Bio Student #5: …Pictures, and the little summaries about the pictures. (laughs)
Bio Student #6: Definitions
Bio Student #7: Just a little information. A little more information.
Sean: Do you read them?
Bio Student #7: No.
Bio Student #8: Dead weight man. (laughs) Build up my back muscles.
Melissa: Like I said, I use the textbooks as references. But I also don’t think that a lot of the students here are as smart as they think that they are, and I think they should use textbooks more as references…. You can edit that one out if you want to.
Michael: I don’t know, I don’t understand them too.
Shirley: Most of the textbooks that I read, I don’t understand it. Like that’s the main thing, I don’t understand it after I read it. So it’s like, “why am I wasting my time reading it?”
Jack: Most of textbooks are still…. Heavy jargon. It’s like, “what the hell… is this Greek?”
Andrea: College reading… it’s an art. I don’t know now, I don’t know. It’s hard. It’s hard, reading for studying. It’s just hard. Reading Tips
(College reading is hard. But help is on the way!)
(Tip #1: Skip the Stupid Stuff)
Claire: Well, for me, when I’m reading a book, I’ll skip over a lot of the stupid descriptions. Stuff like, “oh, the tree was blooming and the sky was bright…” because stuff like that’s kind of a waste….
(Tip #2: Think (picture of Rodin’s “Thinker”)
…. After I’m done with the first chapter, or so, if it’s a difficult book, I will sit down and think to myself, “Okay, well, what did that chapter say? What was the whole point?”
(Tip #3: Look It Up)
Andrea: Because you got all these different words… I have to have a dictionary by me when I’m reading cause I wanna know exactly what everything means.
Aaron: Language is totally different because we are, all of us, Korean. We use Korean, so we have to transfer every vocabulary if we want to understand the content.
Beam: Some pages just spend one hour with each page.
(Tip #4: Look for the Connections)
Adriana: What I do, I just kind of, take what I have in my notes from my lecture, and I just flip to wherever area it is in the book. I start seeing terms from class and lecture, you know – I rarely even look at the rest of the textbook unless it has something related to the lecture.
(Tip #5: Is Tip #5 Do The Questions?)
Bio Student #2: They have questions for you to answer that I just read and just go through and answer….
(To Sum It Up, Tip #6 is: Summarize)
…. I like to read the summary they have at the end. I never read the text like a novel, verbatim, like that, its …no, I don’t think any student does. …. To get the terms down I like to use flash cards, and I just write the terms down.
(Tip #7: Flash Cards)
Chase: EVERYBODY READ!!! (repeat)
…. (No children were bribed during the making of this film.)
I want candy. I want candy now.
…. (Well… maybe just one.)
(Tip #8: Do An Outline)
Jennifer: I said “well, here’s what I did, and it might help you.” I said I wrote an outline and I showed it to her. I said, “Here it is... A, B, C, D – here’s this part, and… what I did from my outline, I went through and pulled out quotes that would support that.”
Megan: …Underline things that I don’t understand, like keywords, certain topics, that I don’t know, I’m going to have to reference back through. I would use the index to my full advantage.
Nelab Haschemi: These are the stories that I will use. These are stories that I may use. These are stories I definitely won’t use, and then these are the subject matters to the stories that I will use…. then I just like to change my color of my highlighter between the stories to keep me excited. There’s green there, blue, orange, sometimes yellow… and then I kind of rephrase what the paragraphs are talking about on the sides of the paragraphs just to really hit the idea home…. The phrases that I highlight are most likely going to be quotes that I use in my paper… things in pencil are ideas of sentences. Things boxed around are, I think, more like a concept that I want to elaborate on. Things written in pen are elaborations of the concepts. Things circled are themes that I find throughout the story. And, things in a box is…just kind of like… I actually don’t know, but just things that stand out.
(Tip #9: Write Your Book, Annotate, Take Notes, Ask Questions In The Margins, Argue With The Author, Doodle, Underline, Highlight, Circle, Box, Bracket, Make The Book Your Bitch, Scribble, Dog Ear The Pages, Draw A Mustache On The Author’s Picture, Talk Back, Swear At Ideas You Don’t Like, Praise Ideas You Do Like, Put Question Marks Everywhere, Take Control Of The Words, Let The Book Know You’re The Boss, Let The Book Know You Did More Than Just Open It)
Megan: All I can do is take it with a grain of salt, and kind of, get through it, the way I can, and try not to let that pressure stress me out cause its only a book. You know, I would love to get through it the way the teacher wants me to, but if it’s too ridiculous for me, or it just, I can’t do it in that time, I mean, I’m just going to try my best to get it done.
(10th And Final Tip: Breathe, Then Do Your Best)
Lydia: For this generation, for the TV watching, video game playing generation, I think it’s really hard for them to sit down and read something as slow moving as a textbook. And then, I think textbooks are used a lot for --- that’s how we’re supposed to learn it, and when you have no idea, it’s like you have nothing to connect it to. …..Textbooks, when people write them, there’s some people who, when they already know it, they don’t know what it’s like to learn it.
Jennifer: The textbook was, “here it is.” And expecting you to already know it.
C.J.: You have the bits and pieces that some person decided that were fit to read.
Shirley: And one time I was, I read the whole chapter, and I highlighted it, and took notes, and none of it was even on the test. So I was like, “man, I’m not reading this thing no more.”
Michael: The only time I ever look at a textbook is if I feel like the teacher ain’t teachin’ me nothing, and I’m like, that’s my only, that’s my last resort.
Bio Student #11: I guess, it’s just a fall back plan, if the teacher sucks, plain and simple – that’s if I buy the book at all, cause half the time I don’t even buy the book. I just go off the lecture.
Liz: Lectures are really cool because you get examples and you get all this cool stuff
Matt: I’m always most comfortable with lecture you know it’s coming out of the teacher’s mouth and I always feel more comfortable. Like “hey that’s gonna be on the test.”
Bio Student #4: I mean, I’m not in elementary school anymore, but I still would like to feel engaged.
Monique: How do you get through a class without reading the text, ever? What does the teacher do that helps you get through it?
Bio Student #9: They discuss what we need to know.
Claire: They always say you learn the most from what you do and then second is like what you observe and third is like what you hear…
Bio Student #3: There’s different types of learners; there’s audio learners, kinesthetic, visual.
Claire: So, you learn the most by participating. So if you have an active discussion that’s where… I mean, I still can remember every line out of that book because we used it. We used it productively. It wasn’t just "go home and read it and take a Scantron test on it."
Jack: When I get drunk and I take photos, blurry photos are artistic.
Esther: Yeah whatever, that has nothing to do with it.
(laughter)
C.J.: Where did that come from?
Jack: They don’t teach you that in textbooks.
C.J.: Oh, Oh, okay well, you should’ve said that!
(laughter)
Background
Andrea: I remember when I was a little girl in bed with my mom, she’d read me the jokes from Reader’s Digest, and that’s how I got introduced to reading, so I love reading.
Christian: My mom reads a lot. She reads all kinds of books. When I was real younger, like five or six, she used to read to me.
Matt: I was almost, practically raised by my grandmother, because my mother works. Yeah, my grandmother would always, at noon, I still remember she would always read to us for at least an hour, and make us do kids workbooks. The kind you’d get at K-Mart or Wal-Mart & such…
Maryanne: My grandmother used to read to me, so I started reading at a very young age. I was limited to what I could do… reading became, I spent a lot of time in the hospital, so you’re in a hospital bed, so there’s not too many options for you: reading or TV. Well, both of them could get boring after a while, so you got to switch off.
Melissa: My parents read to me every night before I went to bed… until I was, probably about, eight or nine, when I was too cool for school.
Kahlif: No, I didn’t get read to. I had to clean. I was cleaning since I was three years old.
Melissa: Had my parents not invested time in me, reading, I wouldn’t have thought it was important, to read.
Ivone: When I was little, I wasn’t read to, but most of my time was spent out on the ranch with the horses and the cows. Running after chickens.
Julian: My parents didn’t really read to me when I was younger, but I read a lot on my own. Like Cat In the Hat and stuff.
Aaron: My parents, they didn’t read the book, just hear the radio, or watching TV., television news.
Megan: I had a really rough childhood, so I don’t remember a lot of the story times, maybe I remember a couple, but…
Katrina: Like I said, my mom, she raised me and my two older brothers, and she was busy lots of the time because she was working more than one job. So I really never had anybody, like, I never really had the late night story time…. “I’m going to buy you this, because mommy doesn’t have enough time at the end of the day to read to you” – That’s a lie. I know it’s hard, and I know it’s hard to work & raise kids, but hey, that’s the choice she made…. I was a good child, but then I was like, “no one is paying attention to me, so I’m going to show my ass…”
Nicole: I used to like reading… when I was little. Ever since I came to America… I started to hate reading.
Nick: When I was younger, I wasn’t really a big fan of reading… just because, I don’t know. I never -- I felt like I was pressured to read, like “Oh you have to read this…”
Matt Hohl: My parents read, and everybody reads, but I don’t.
Adrianna: Because I remember High School, for me, it was just like, I was hardly even in there in class. Me, take notes? Yeah, right.
Jennifer: Homework is extremely time consuming… and when you’re young, and in High School, and not as responsible, or don’t want to be responsible, you don’t have time for homework.
Nick: I don’t think I ever really read a whole book until I actually went to college.
Katrina: I’ve known friends that’ve been, all throughout High School, all throughout school that’s never even read a book. Either they try to find a movie that was on the book, or they bullshitted the whole situation.
Liz: One of my English teachers, when I was a senior, all she wanted us to do was color. And it was an English class…. High school is supposed to have you ready for college, to write papers, to write it down, all of that, and they don’t…. I’m pretty sure all the teachers know already – you’re at Chabot – how bad the school districts are. They know…
(Pleasure Reading)
Lydia: I really like to read. I read a lot. More for pleasure than for educational, though, I do believe in reading for education… I just, don’t do it as much as I’d like.
Andrea: Summer, spring break, Christmas break, whatever, I read those books, I return them. I can’t wait ‘till school’s over so I can read, cause it takes me away, pleasure reading…
Kahlif: Me, personally, I read Harry Potter, all five books. Six now. Guess I’m a geek for that one.
Melissa: Oh, I always have a book running. Right now I’m reading A Case For Christ, which is a journalist’s perspective on Jesus Christ…. It’s kind of boring.
Leonard: It amazes me when people talk about, “Oh, did you read this book?” or “Did you read that book?” and it’s like, wow, they read all these books, and sometimes I feel like I’m left out or behind because I don’t have a large volume of books that I’ve read. What I'd Rather Do
Jamie: What would you rather do?
Matt Hohl: Be outdoors, or playing video games, or playing baseball. Or driving somewhere, going to the movies, something like that. Not reading. Too hard.
Neal: I like watching stuff visually, I don't like reading stuff.
Steve: If I have to read a book, I probably wouldn't read. I'd probably just get on my X-Box.
Neal: ...playing video games on my X-Box 360.
Steve: ...which I shouldn't be doing, but to me, it's like, reading is kind of a waste of my time.
Woman from Sean's class: Cooking...
Neal: ...with some music...
101A Woman: Sex.
Leonard: Fishing.
101A Woman: Scrubbing the toilet.
Katrina: Or watching TV, or flipping through internet, or going on to Myspace, or something.
Neal: ...hang out with somebody, just talk with somebody.
Katrina: For me to say "I don't have enough time in the day to actually pick up a book and read", I'm lying. Because I can totally find at least 10 minutes, or 15, 20 minutes out of my day [where] I can not be talking on my cell phone, or not driving to Jack in the Box and getting something to eat. Or actually, staying home and grabbing something out of my kitchen, and reading.
Melissa: I definetely think that squirrels work harder than students. Look at the drop-out rates of Chabot College, and look at how full the parking lot is, the first week of classes, and go look at it right now. Squirrels are busting their ass everyday, because if they don't get those little acorns and their nuts, and build their little nests -- do squirrels have nests? Like, inside of trees and stuff, right? -- If they don't [work] they're going to die. No one says "if you don't have an education, you're going to die". You might be working at McDonalds, and would rather be dead... but, yeah, squirrels work harder.
Self-Esteem
Melissa: Reading and self-esteem are definitely connected. I think that if you don’t feel like you’re intelligent enough to read, you won’t.
Matt: I think for someone who doesn’t know how to read, it would be a big shock to their ego.
Matt Hohl: I just really don’t like to read. I just could care less about reading.
Katrina: More deeper down the problem, the root of the issue, besides the fact that she just doesn’t want to do it, that there’s other issues down behind, beneath it.
Matt: The book I read, the Violence book, it describes a lot about prisoners who couldn’t read and how it affected them, and they’d rather go without, you know, knowing how to read than to…um… admit to their other prison inmates that “hey, you know, I can’t, I can’t read.” So they rather not read at all.
Darryl: One of my classmates told me “I went and got drunk last night, I went and got drunk, I went and got drunk.”… You got drunk? You gonna go hurt yourself over something that ain’t gonna never, really, really, really, help you on the inside?
Megan: They diagnosed me with a disability when I was like in preschool…. How does your little tests know what grade level, or whatever I am? (sarcastically) Oh it was great for my self-esteem.
Liz: Well, for me, I don’t understand it the first time, or the second time, or like the third time, it takes me a couple times. And I have to tell them, “I’m sorry I don’t understand, and I’m totally listening, but it’s just -- my brain isn’t grasping what you’re saying.”
Andrea: I have bouts of depression and bouts of mania. I go up and down. And I don’t want to get up and -- what I do, I just get up and go anyway. It effects me. I get overwhelmed sometimes. My mind wanders.
Ivone: I think everybody goes through those stressful times… you know, depression times. I know I’ve been through it. I know I’m still going through it. But if you’re just like “Oh, I’m not going to be able to read this, there’s too many hard words,” then it’s like you’re just putting…. negative, being negative…you’re just gonna put yourself down and you’re gonna give up and put the book down.
Katrina: You can sit there and look at a book and lit…literally talk yourself out of it.
Ursula: I got distractions. I can read all day long but I read and my mind goes that way then I have to get myself back. There is such a thing as life.
Carla: I’m pushing myself, I’m pushing myself constantly and I’m constantly stressed out because I can’t… I, I hate the word fail. And if I fail I, I swear I think it would destroy me. It really would.
Jennifer: I mean I cried when I went home. And I couldn’t speak without crying. It was a really bad day…. I feel like, I’m almost like, I’m drowning and trying to keep my head above water because I haven’t read what these other people are talking about. I feel very lost. And sometimes there’s just times, you know, times where I don’t feel like doing anything cause I’m exhausted. And that makes me feel like I’m being lazy. At some point you have to stop and take a breath. I feel like I’m sinking. (repeat)
Maryanne: I feel really sad for that person because at least they’re coming in and trying, then they’re like they’re giving up and like “I can’t make it.” Outside pressure or inside pressure or school pressure it causes them to do this. But really I feel sad for the student um because, you know, they just feel like they just didn’t get a chance.
Jack: I think as long as you try your best, do your best you won’t have that low self- esteem.
Ivone: If you believe in yourself and believe that you can do it you can follow through.
Megan: It’s gonna be easier for other people. And if it’s harder for you, like sometimes it takes a little nip out of your self-esteem, it’s just like “geez”…. So I have to read a little bit longer, or it’ll take me longer to read than somebody else. But I mean, that’s fine, that’s something I’ve been dealing with since I’ve been in school. So what I mean so what if it takes me longer? I’m gonna take as long as I want.
Matt: All those factors can pop up at any time you just got to go with it because you know there’s probably other students themselves that have, you know, problems.
Darryl: If I get it I get it. If I don’t I don’t.
Matt: You get, feel anxiety but you just got to go with it and just, do your best.
Darryl: Nothing outside of me dictates who I am. I’m not gonna let ‘em dictate that.
Liz: I found out about books on tape, because I didn’t know about it in high school. So then I got Harry Potter on tape and everything, and I was like “Oh my god, this is so cool!” I was all psyched and everything, cause, like, everybody always reads the book and then they go see the movie, so I was like, “yeah this is so cool! I totally understand what’s going on and everything.” So…so I had, you know most people like you read a book like that, you guys did, and I had never had that. And I finally got that when I was, like, twenty something years old. And I’ts like “It’s so fucking cool! I love it,” you know…. Ever since that, I love books on tape. It’s been great, and now I know what everybody’s talking about. Student Responsibility
“Ok, cake class, I don’t care.”
(A student who earns a Bachelor’s Degree can expect to earn one million
dollars more over her working lifetime than someone who only has a High
School Diploma)
Melissa: I’m trying to get the most out of it that I can. This is just a
stepping stone. It’s a Teacher Responsibility
Maryanne: I go into class, and I’m going to know in ten minutes if me and that teacher are going to work.
Carla: I feel that sometimes people are afraid to step up and ask questions because the teacher ignores them. And I’ve been ignored quite a bit, and it really pisses me off.
Maryanne: There are some teachers out there that don’t know how to teach a class.
Adrianna: They’ve just got the credentials, they’ve got the experience, and any way they explain it you should understand…. and if you don’t understand the way they’re saying it, it’s because you’re not paying attention. You didn’t do what it took to understand it in the first place, you shouldn’t be in this class in the first place, you should just know how to do it. Like they think they’re just IT. (repeat)
Melvin: A teacher who… let me say, like, who’s just bias, who’s just there.
Matt: He was just, really… like he didn’t want to be there himself.
Melvin: Or one who don’t want to be bothered, who has an attitude, or who doesn’t enjoy what they’re doing.
Matt: He’d come to class and say, “Well what do you guys want to do today?”
Melvin: They’ll probably walk out while you’re taking a test.
Matt: He’d go off, and say “Okay, do these problems”, then he’d go off for 20 minutes and go get a cup of coffee.
Melvin: They don’t explain themselves, or just tell you “just do page this and that…”
Matt: He’d come back and make fun of the students that didn’t do quite well.
Melvin: I mean, that’s how I look at it, that’s what a bad teacher is to me.
Matt: I remember he left one day, and I just got up and I grabbed my stuff, and everyone was looking at me, like they could tell I was angry.
Carla: Either you’re going to teach me, or you’re not. And if you’re not going to teach me, then you shouldn’t be in this position.
Christian: That’s how they were shown to teach, maybe, and so that’s just why, like, if they been teaching a certain way for whatever years it’s going to be hard to just show them some tape and convince them that this is the way, maybe you guys should think about teaching.
Bio Student #3: You wanted to become a teacher for a reason, and that was to empower people, to teach them, to help them learn things. And if you don’t care, why should I care?
Bio Student #2: A teacher has the power to completely turn you on to a subject or completely turn you off of a subject.
Jack: Had I not read Feynman, had I not been in ISLS, I would’ve wrote off Feynman as just another scientist.
Bio Student #2: I’ve heard students say, “Okay, I don’t even like this subject, but this teacher made me want to do it, made me actually want to go to that class, so it made it fun for me. Now I like this subject.”
Claire: You know, it wasn’t even so much of a lecture; every day was kind of a debate. She’d bring in all these different current events and things like that and we’d talk about them.
Adrianna: He seemed so passionate about what he was saying, and he would animate his lectures, and kind of like, give it life…
Jack: Take Scott when he was teaching Machiavelli; he had…
C.J.: He used the word “neat” in every other sentence.
Jack: He had, basically, strips of paper that showed locations: Milan, Florence – Okay, the entire room was Florence. You had Milan, you had Rome, you had Spain. He showed it; basically imagine you’re in this time. Florence is this crossroad. Imagine this person that is Machiavelli.
C.J.: Yeah, he really put us into it, he’s like, “Who is this person? Try to understand it.” And he was obviously really interested in it, because you could see it in his face.
Melvin: They really get involved with the class, or the student. And they really try to push you harder, like if you had a C, they’ll probably tell you, “You really can do better”. I like a teacher that encourages you. That’s the type of teacher I like.
Monique: Do you get a lot of those?
Melvin: No, I probably only have one, maybe two right now.
Adrianna: I like down to earth teachers. I like down to earth teachers.
Nick: Be down to earth about it. Don’t act all… (snicker)
Adrianna: They’re just really open. Like, genuinely open, and really glad to be teachers. You can just sense that right away.
Matt: It’s okay to joke around. I love it when teachers, they don’t act all stiff. They’re on that equal playing field like they’re your friend…. If the teacher wants to be a good teacher, instead of being a tyrant, bring yourself down to the students’ level.
Carla: They need to be able to communicate with you on a level that’s even. An equal level.
Matt: I think the students will absorb more if they feel they’re on an equal playing field, than if they’re towering above them, and “Oh, I’m Mr. Dictator, and you do what I say or you’re going to get a C or D in the class”…
Carla: Instead of looking down, just because you’re a teacher, that don’t make me a smaller person. You know, I can talk to you in any way, you can talk to me in any way, then it’s not going to work.
Bio Student #10: I think a lot of teachers turn off a lot of students from the start. They walk in with the assumption that no one cares. And they’re just here cause they need credits for their car insurance or their parents are making them.
Michael: I think they have you in a box. Like right when you get in, I think they expect you to be a certain way. Cause most people don’t expect me to do anything when I get in class. And then when I do it, they’re kind of surprised like, “Okay, he’s serious.”
Kahlif: It’s like some teachers don’t try to relate. When they were assigned a book in college, they didn’t always read it. They probably tried to look on Cliff’s Notes or something.
Jennifer: Some of these teachers forget where they came from. You weren’t born a doctor. You went through school, and graduated, and now you’re a doctor or professor, or whatever -- don’t forget the little guys down here. We need to be where you are at some point. And some people forget that.
Ursula: You want to encourage us. Not because it’s a money issue, because we’re trying to get where you’re going. You’re already educated: we’re trying to get the same thing, that education.
Christian: I remember one time my teacher told me about a student, like “No matter how long you knock, they won’t answer”. I said, “Eventually they’ll have to answer if you just keep knocking”. But you don’t know how much time the teacher has to keep knocking.
Lydia: I think every teacher, whether or not they see the student and they think that they don’t want to do it, they should treat them like they do. Even if they’re 100% sure the student is slacking off and doesn’t care, I think that they should treat them like they do. The Bond
Shirley: The relationship really matters. Because if you don’t like the teacher, the teacher don’t like you, it seems like that hate on you and stuff. I wouldn’t even go. I’ll be like “whatever,” you know. I’ll try to wing this class, or like, I’ll just drop it.
Lydia: If I don’t like a teacher…. I won’t let it get to me enough that I’m gonna fail the class, but I definitely don’t strive to do better for them.
Melissa: …and the teachers that I didn’t have any kind of relationship with, I was less inclined to show up. I didn’t really care… was kind of indifferent.
Laricia: Well, you know, where I grew up respect is “You show me I show you.”
Bio Student #9: If they want respect, I mean, I give them respect. And if they don’t then I talk to them on the level they treat me as.
Matt: They do have a degree and they’re educated but I don’t think they should, they should just lay that on the table like “Hey I’m this teacher and I’m better than you.” They should and try and connect, maybe on an equal level. Like, you know, “I’m here to help you so you can maybe one day, you know, be as good as me. “
Michael: I will respect them. I’ll do what they need to do. I’ll help um’ out as long as they help me out. But if they like kind of like, kind of try to force me to do somethin’ then it’s like “Come on now, (Laugh), you got to calm down.” Like I-- I’d be reluctant to like, you feel me, mess with them a little bit. Like I shy away from everything they doin’. I won’t really care about what they sayin’.
Christian: The teacher is putting their time and effort into you and you’re not putting it back into your work, that’s kind of disrespectful, you know, to the teacher.
Matt: So when the teacher’s lecturing just something simple as paying attention. If a student is like talking in their cell phone, you know, I think that’s a lack of respect for the teacher.
Melvin: If I got a strong connection with a teacher and I don’t do my assignment I, I sometime I feel kind of bad, you know, cause they give you a little leeway and you don’t wanna just keep taking all that rope cause eventually they might say something. Then it’s some type of friction and you done just messed off y’all’s good relationship because you not doin’ what you supposed to do.
Adrianna- I think a personal relationship with any student kind of puts them on the spot.
Shawn: And when you have a student-teacher relationship when you don’t read the book you feel bad when you come to class.
Jennifer: They’ve put in all this work and effort and stuff and I’m not pulling my weight and it’s like you wanna make your teacher proud, I guess?
Megan: You have to have, If you want someone to do something for you, even though it benefits them, you till have to like make the learning environment a good place. I don’t care if it’s like elementary school or college.
Julian: It’d be a much more encouraging it would help the person grow as a person if they’d be more open with each other.
Megan: You want to make it inviting and you want them to like feel like they can come to you with questions. If they need to and like it’s not an authority thing--you know you don’t want that in your class. Cause I mean no one’s going to like take you seriously. No one’s gonna wanna like, you know, take your class if you’re gonna wanna be like just like a Scrooge about everything and you know you’re gonna end up like, you know, driving people away that could really benefit from your class. And you can benefit from learning from them as a teacher. I mean like I don’t think um I ever would want to take a class where the teacher thought they didn’t have nothing to learn themselves, you know.
Hot Tips
For Teacher
Claire: Having Discussions, making kids get involved on what did they find
in the book and helping them see how to draw those conclusions, so later on
they can do it on their own.
Leonard: Cause when you have a class of 20 and you’re trying to get
something across to them, you don’t know if everyone got it. But if you
work one on one, you get to work with that one person then get them to see
what they don’t see.
Ursula: They need to stop giving so much over-head(s), and just print it
out. And let us ask questions during the lecture, regarding the chapter,
and not so much dictating what we’re going to learn.
Ursula: We’re spending so much time taking notes, we’re not hearing you no
way. Let us have those hand-outs that you’re going step by step by step, and
let us use it as a part of the lecture.
Epilogue
Sean: We’re just wondering, do you guys like reading?
Class: Yes
Sean: How many of you like reading?
(one woman raises her hand)
Sean: How many of you don’t like reading?
(everyone else raises hands)
Sean: If you read poetry out loud to your lover, raise your hand.
(same woman raises her hand.)
Sean: What’s less fun to do than reading?
Woman: Surgery. Major surgery.
Guy: An essay on the reading.
Sean: Can you make it out of college without reading?
Woman: Yes --- Various classmates: No… --- Woman: Course you can.
(voices out of frame)
Jamie: How do you want to feel after you leave a class? Melissa: I want to feel… confident.
Christian: You just want to feel good about yourself. You just don’t want to feel bad, you don’t want to leave nowhere feeling bad, so...
Laricia: You don’t want to leave the class empty-headed.
Ivone: I left last semester, you know, knowing that I had, I was thinking more critical.
Matt: After I left the course, at least I learned some things that will help me, like let’s say it’s a pre-requisite course, like, “Hey, I can go on to the next course and be prepared.” Even if I didn’t remember every single thing.
Melissa: I love when I walk out of a classroom, and I have some new information that I can brag to someone, and say, spill off random facts, or explain something to someone else – I love the fact that education connects everyone.
(Shot of “Welcome to Chabot” Banner) 2000 new students start each fall 800 don’t make it to the spring.
Jack: A lot of eastern cultures have said that if you have the choice to piss off God or piss off the instructor, go ahead and piss off God because the instructor is there to turn you around. (end credits)
Reading environment
Leonard: I'll pick a nice, quiet room and read. And I don't have no music on, no TV or anything.
James: Well, I need it as silent as possible.
Shirley: But if there's noise, I just can't read, I can't focus. It's either ADD, or whatever.
Matt: I'm usually distracted, there's people walking around, and I'm looking at what they're doing.
Jennifer: That's a huge thing with daydreaming. Cause I'm sitting there reading, and all of the sudden... "I've got to do this for dinner...", you know? I just start thinking of different things, and then I have no idea what I've read.
Kalif: I'm hungry. (laughs) TV. Going to that party on Friday... very distracting.
Shawn: Who's that girl in the club on Saturday?
Kalif: Who just texted me on my phone five minutes ago?
Michael: If I hear a little music, it'll keep me -- I don't know, like I can read to a rhythm or something (laughs).
Jessica: Sometimes, I'll listen to music. Except for when its a song that I know -- I'll start singing it, and forget about the whole reading thing...
Michael: I need some kind of -- I need some noise around me of some sort.
Carla: See, I'm the opposite (laughs). I need it quiet. So you should come to my house, and I'll go to yours.
What I'd Rather Do
Jamie: What would you rather do?
Matt Hohl: Be outdoors, or playing video games, or playing baseball. Or driving somewhere, going to the movies, something like that. Not reading. Too hard.
Neal: I like watching stuff visually, I don't like reading stuff.
Steve: If I have to read a book, I probably wouldn't read. I'd probably just get on my X-Box.
Neal: ...playing video games on my X-Box 360.
Steve: ...which I shouldn't be doing, but to me, it's like, reading is kind of a waste of my time.
Woman from Sean's class: Cooking...
Neal: ...with some music...
101A Woman: Sex.
Leonard: Fishing.
101A Woman: Scrubbing the toilet.
Katrina: Or watching TV, or flipping through internet, or going on to Myspace, or something.
Neal: ...hang out with somebody, just talk with somebody.
Katrina: For me to say "I don't have enough time in the day to actually pick up a book and read", I'm lying. Because I can totally find at least 10 minutes, or 15, 20 minutes out of my day [where] I can not be talking on my cell phone, or not driving to Jack in the Box and getting something to eat. Or actually, staying home and grabbing something out of my kitchen, and reading.
Melissa: I definetely think that squirrels work harder than students. Look at the drop-out rates of Chabot College, and look at how full the parking lot is, the first week of classes, and go look at it right now. Squirrels are busting their ass everyday, because if they don't get those little acorns and their nuts, and build their little nests -- do squirrels have nests? Like, inside of trees and stuff, right? -- If they don't [work] they're going to die. No one says "if you don't have an education, you're going to die". You might be working at McDonalds, and would rather be dead... but, yeah, squirrels work harder.
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