Nerves!
Tonight Sarah and I did our first orals rehearsal. First–we went to dinner at Ti Couz and had yummy crepes and fresh lemonade. It was delicious! I hadn’t been there in a long time.
Then we came home to my house and did one practice question each. It was very nerve-racking for both of us, and made us both realize that far beyond the summarizing and reviewing of this year’s reading that we’ve been doing–we need to practice practice practice the public speaking piece. Figure out how to TALK about what we know, what we’ve learned this year, and how it all connects to the history and practice of education.
A few other strategies came to mind as we practiced: 1) it’s important to define the key terms in the question, and talk about how the people we’ve read have talked about and defined them–thus, if the question asks about reforms that are intended to address equity, as mine did, it’s important to start my answer with a discussion of what reform is, how it happens generally, and what we mean when we talk about equity in schooling–then get into details of the specific reform (bilingual education, in my case); 2) starting with a historical context can be a helpful way of framing what we’re going to talk about–where did the reform come from, what did we have before, what reoccuring problems of education is it related to; and 3) give a context for the readings we bring in–our examiners may not have read them recently, or ever, so talk about the kind of perspective the reading provides.
Whew! Oral exams are difficult–and these are just a practice-run really for the big orals that come in Year 3 or 4. In search of Ph.D. humor after Sarah left, I then went to the most reliable source I know, and cracked up at this comic:
