QR afterward

wow, to sum up the afterward, wow. It's interesting to know that everything I just read didn't just come from a group of doctors or whatever in some far off laboratory doing a bunch of random studies. It's nice to know that this isn't an adult trying to get into a kids head then spitting it out oin paper. This is actually a book where the students helped to write it, or at least gave their input allowing for a better understanding for both the people writing it as well as the people reading it.

Chapter 10

This chapter relates to the previous chapter about giving students goals. This chapter talks about making class more interesting and helping students to learn by relating it to things outside of the classroom. This is just the same as giving students a reaosn to learn. Help students understand and see what's going on and why they should learn, for now, and for the future. Connect to t.v. shows, to the teenage culture. Get down there and help the kids to udnerstand a little bit about what's going on. We have one teache rin high school, she must have been around 60. She was the most exciting and down to earth teacher I have ever had.

Chapter 9

The book mentions the importance of really pushing students and staying with them. The idea of giving up on a student for any reason seems so difficult for me to really understand. But I can see how in same cases a teacher might feel like it's easier to just give up. But then what does the student think, why would the student have any desire to try, there aren't any expectations any more. A teacher can't give up, although it has to be the most difficult thing ever to be a teacher and ivest all of your time into a student or a group of students just to see them fail. Any good teacher who sees a student fail will feel as if they failed a little bit too. The trick is to just keep going, a teacher's goal isn't to simply get kids the grade, but to help them come to understandings and to learn how to have faith in themselves. One thing this makes me think of is in the school I am doing my practicum time in, there is one group labelled the "D" group, they know who they are and they know they've been labelled the "D" group for a reason. In class so many of them see no reason to really try. Come to think of it, this entire 8th grade class has been listed as a trouble class since kindergarden. I mean come on.

Chapter 8

While this chapter was important, it really seemed quite irrelevant. Yes we need to be able to teach students who have English as a second or third or ever fourth language. But most of us wilkl be teaching in Maine or some other overly white state. The book talks about helping them learn, we don't know anything about "them". But it really is something to think about, what if we do encounter students from cultures so different from our own. Not just in reading, but every other area, just the same as wanting to know all the student's history, we should want to understand their culture as well so that we as teachers might be able to be more effective for the students.

Chapter 7

This chapter really made me think of my practicum teacher. Every lesson is literally having the students sit down and read from the text for almost an hour. Students will sit down in class and read/ take notes then take a quiz using their notes. There is no thinking, it's just the most boring thing ever. Students need a change of pace, if students don't have a chance to do something different, to really get out there and have a chance to think they're going to shut down. In order to keep students available to learn we need to encourage them to think, to encourage them to look at things from new and unusal perspectives.

Chapter 6

Chapter 6 made me happy to read. This is exactly the way I've felt about teaching my entire life. Students don't want to elarn something for the blessing of knowledge that it will bestow upon them. Students want to know why it matters, what's the point. Students really do need real life goals, otherwise why should they have any desire to learn. Each student will have to be reached in different ways, some you can say for college and that's all you need, but what abotu kids who want to be miners or whatever. Each student nees to be attended to personally.

Chapter 5

This chapter kind of put the entire classroom into perspective. It's something to think about when you look at everyone as individuals. Everyone has a different history, a different past, different things that make them tick. Iyt's important as a teacher that I don't overstep a student's bounds, and that I know enough about the student that I don't do something to offend or disturb them. But sometimes one would think kids really need to learn to step out of bounds. While school is a safe environment and such, when can one think of a better time for kids to really go out on a limb. Kids won't be any safer to try new things outside of school.

Chapter 4

This chapter didn't bring any true realizations to me. Except maybe about not praising students. I guess I never really thought about it, but when I was a student I hated receiving praise inf ront of everyone, I felt like it set me apart. Not all students want to be set apart fromt he peers, most just want to fit in. I like how the book shows that and stresses not leaving students out and making sure that students are involved. I used to hate it when I would miss a class and students would be able to talk about the last class and whatever and I just wanted to get to the next lesson so I would have an idea as to what was going on. When it talks about grades it makes me think of one of my teachers. My teacher used to post all of the grades up for everyone to see. It used to bother me, I woulkd get higher marks and I felt like it set me apart.

Chapter 3

When I read this chapter it made me laugh. I had just had an experience with one of my students that made me wish I had read this chapter earlier. As I am in the classroom I am learning more and more that I really need to be willing to put my foot down every once in a while. I can't be a friend, and I can't be that nice guy. Where the book talks about punishment and being firm is where I would have really benefited. The teacher had left to go talk with another teacher, and the students started talking about underwear when they should have been reading about history. So while smiling I asked them to stop, and some of them listened, except this one obnoxious girl in the front of the classroom. Every time I told her to stop she talk back to me as if I was the one in the wrong. I should have sent her to the office the moment she was indignant.