Reading for October 6th

When students believe they can do a specific task then they are more likely to persist at it and succeed.  This is a great point because I believe that too many students don't believe in themselves so in turn they don't always do well.  It is the self fulfilling prophecy, if we say we can't do it than it won't happen.  As teachers we need to motivate our students and give them challenging work that will help them learn, but at the same time scaffold them and let them have success so they know they can do hard things.   As we "raise the ceiling"  for our students we also need to "raise the support system".  This means that as we challenge our students we need to give them the support that they need.  We can't assign something different and challenging and then just leave our students high and dry... what will they think of us then?  They will get frustrated and they will most likely fail.  

"We cannot teach the breadth of the entire world and at the same time achieve any depth of understanding".   There is definitely a lot more to teaching than checking things off a list.  My husband and I were talking and he said, "Teaching is not talking, and learning is not listening."   Teaching is not just getting up in front of the class and talking, it's more facilitating, being a model, and providing experiences for our students.   Just because I am listening to someone talk does not mean that I am learning anything.  I think that students have to be actively involved with the lesson or activity to really learn the material.  

One thing that i wonder is how do we let our students know what the objectives are.  For every task do we print out the standards and let the students see them?  Should we write the objectives on the board every single time?  I know its good to see an endpoint and a goal but sometimes i think that might be a little bit overwhelming for students to realize that they have to know all of that at the end of the lesson or unit.  

How do I make the curriculum irresistible to young minds??  I want to make my students want to learn so bad but I can see it taking over my life.  Finding and implementing creative lessons isn't always the easiest thing to do.   I desperately hope that I have a good team when I start teaching and that we will be able to bounce ideas off each other.  I think that other teachers can make a huge impact in your teaching career... I know that I will be depending on them a lot because I will feel so inadequate and not prepared!  

I think it would be fun to find lots of cartoons and use them to teach parts of history, science, english, and tons of other things.  Every child and teacher deserves a few good laughs during the day and cartoons can definitely help with that.  It's also important to aim high with our students.  If we believe that they can do something and help them believe in themselves then they will succeed.  The "keeper of the book"  is also a great tool that will save the teacher time and is even a good assessment for that person.  They have to know what's going on in order to put it in the book.  I know that if I had to be the keeper of the book than I would be paying attention and know what I had to write down in it.  It may be good too not to let that person know they were the keeper until after the lesson was already taught in order to keep everyone on their toes.