Beers-Chapter 4

I LOVE Chapter 4. I had the same English teacher for 10^th and 11^th grade, and she is the reason I want to be a teacher. Anyway, very few classes of hers were not an environment like the ones described in the book. I always felt comfortable contributing my ideas in her class, and I will always remember the very active debates the class got into about things. I was in the honors English class, and so we had the same kids together for 4+ years of school (we were together in middle school too). I don’t think she took this same approach to her “regular” classes. I have always known that the English class that I loved so much would always be my foundation for the way I approached my own students in my classroom someday.  It didn’t really make sense to me that other teachers were unaware that students love environments like that.

I really like the way the author of the chapter talks about what it means to comprehend. It seems like with NCLB, teachers are not able to devote students for one topic and really nail it before they have to move on to make sure all the standards are covered. Kids really like when teachers spend more than one class period on a subject so that the students can really feel comfortable with the ideas and express their own ideas about them. Again, if the members of the government really understood what students really want/need, they could make better decisions that would benefit everyone, and test scores would probably be better. I know there has to be a better solution out there than NCLB.