Teaching Difficult Academic Material

This resource is incredibly helpful. Teaching different material, especially within my content area, is something that I always struggle with. What if the content is just too complex for my class, or more realistically, what if I become obsessed with the prejudice that my class is not ready for the difficult material? Looking at students’ comments, however, it’s pretty clear that students’ minds are pretty much able to take anything in and work with it if it is presented the right way. This paradigm that students have a point where they won’t learn anything should be abandoned, as it’s really detrimental to their learning. Challenging academic material is what I imagine a lot of students need to motivate them to learn. As long as they understand and are challenged, they should strive to learn the content.

Chapter 6: Motivation and Boredom

This chapter was one of my favorites. I have always wanted to be one of those crazy old coots that are wildly passionate about the content, but in a way that connects to the students. If I can show the students how much I care about English, maybe they will too. Keeping kids motivated is something that I think is going to be challenging and interesting. I know that I will have no problem showing pride in students’ good work and caring about their progress. The list of reading materials that many of the students cared about was handy – I may do a questionnaire asking what reading material my students care about.

Teaching to the Group, Working with the Individual

This chapter focused on group work and how the individual learns differently from a group. It seemed kind of hypocritical that the chapter begun by categorizing most students into seven groups before talking about how students learn differently. Later, however, I could see how these categorizations could help when assigning students to different group roles. I liked how the students suggested that the teacher take a more active role in monitoring the groups and making sure that some members don’t dominate other members. There was also a good distinction that while group work makes classes easier and more useful for teachers and students, the progress must be measured individually.

Chapter 4: Creating a Culture of Success

This chapter focused on what a teacher can do to establish the classroom as a place where students feel successful. The pressures from family and peers that a teacher can try to downplay in the classroom can have a huge effect on the likelihood that a student feels able to succeed. The list of things not to do was helpful for me. Obviously, not favoring students is a no-brainer, as is comparing students to other students, but I imagine that when frustrated, having faith and believing in students is easier said than done. One thing that startled me in the chapter was the teacher handout for teachers to categorize students into “usual grade” categories. This idea seemed terrible to me. I think students should be judged by the work they do, and the very existence of this list seems to prejudice teachers.

Chapter 3: Classroom Behavior

This chapter focused on classroom behavior and how the teacher in a classroom should look at classroom behavior in both teacher and student roles as a contract between the parties. Many of the students in the book offered really helpful advice that I plan on taking to my own classroom. I personally disagreed with a few of the strategies, particularly the ones that endorse even mild shaming. I think that making kids sit in the front of the class to “look stupid” probably wouldn’t do much to break the labeling that goes on in classrooms. The tables of effective consequences and indicators of possible sources of student misbehavior were really helpful for me. Strategies like calling parents should be used sparingly.