How do I love thee..Modeling

November 14, 2020

Modeling is the ability to transform information in a new way. Robert and Michele Root-Bernstein say, “ Models, in short, can allow us to reify- make concrete- ideas and concepts that are otherwise difficult to understand,” (1999, p.238). Using a model helps narrow down a topic to be easily understood.

Through exploring courage, I decided to continue my exploration of the hero. When most think of a hero, they think of someone in a cape with a super power, or someone with a tool to fight. However, a hero can be more than just that and exemplify courage. For example, Kamala Harris will be the first woman vice president, first African American women vice president, and of Asian descent. On November 7, Kamala gave courage to all women, “ While I may be the first woman in this office, I will not be the last—because every little girl watching tonight sees that this is a country of possibilities,” (Harris, 2020). With this sentence and her victory, she exemplified courage and qualities of hero, by showing that any woman could be anything they want to be. This showed me that anyone can be a hero. A hero can be someone who is brave, a role model, and a person with a vision. All of us exemplify aspects of a hero in some way or another.

For my graphical representation, I diagrammed the aspects of a hero. I closed in on the image of a hero with a cape, knowing that the hero could symbolically take the cape off. When I thought about the aspects of heroes with and without capes, I realized that heroes have a vision for the future, or an end goal, they are brave, they are empowering, and are leaders. A hero needs courage to be who they are and accomplish the tasks that they do.

Using this model would be useful in teaching. With this diagram, you can only map so many descriptions of heroes that it has to be narrowed down. In my second grade class, student could think of a hundred ways to describe a dog, talk about what the dog does, and what he plays with. However this diagram forces you to narrow your subject to only four segments. If students were to do this, they would have to narrow in on what is most important. This model would help my students in describing people, places, and things. It allows for students to take a story and complete a chart with the four most important details of the story. Overall, using the concept of modeling for a concept or a story helps us zoom in on what the topic truly is.