Post #5

Bah! I'm so sorry I fell behind on my Blogs!
Sometimes life sneaks up behind me and bites me in the butt! Now's the time to catch up though.

For this blog, please find two different places where Carol makes a statement or quotes someone else, and this statement really touches you... really calls to your heart.
In your blog response, for each statement, give the page number where it is found in the book, copy the most important portion of the statement, and briefly tell why it matters to you -- why it has significant meaning for you. (Please do not use the quotes printed right underneath the chapter titles).

Chapter 2, top of page 19, regarding challenging your students, Carol writes:
"When life works as it should, we dream dreams, make plans, aspire to be more tomorrow than we were yesterday. We are invigorated by challenge, strengthened by working toward it, and ennobled by attaining it."..."Challenge is highly personal. It is rare when a single classroom task will invite each learner equally to risk uncertainty, persist in the face of doubt, and attain the goal that seemed for a while out of reach."... "Challenge in the classroom gives roots and wings to young dreams. It prepares learners with the substance, habits, and confidence necessary to move toward their dreams."

This part of the chapter inspires me to differentiate. It forces me to realize that without challenging my students they will feel no success in my classroom, however not everyone will reach that success without my differentiation as their teacher. No two students will accept any challenges the same, and thus, I must make sure that each is challenged most appropriately. Now, how to do this? That's what I need to figure out...


In chapter three, towards the middle of page 27 Carol writes:
"They (the five things student's need from a teacher) are not ancillary to teaching but are at the core of effective teaching. They are not separate from the learner's needs. And... they are not apart from curriculum and instruction, but they breathe life into it."

Again, Carol inspires me to be the kind of teacher I wanted to be when I decided teaching was the best job in the world. I love that through the rest of the chapter she gives us as many tools as possible to become the type of teacher that I want to be. Now, after going through the program, I realize how often it is that student's needs get pushed aside and school seems to focus on shoving the information into the brains of those children. I love this quote because it's Carol telling me: yes, give them the information, but do it effectively in a way that they will actually learn it by reaching the five needs talked about in chapter two.