“…we must not legitimate the inequity that exists in the nation’s schools…”(p.142)
This made me think of my time students teaching in the city. The school I was at had 2 televisions for a building of 600 students. The art budget was barely enough to cover paper for the year let alone pencils, crayons, or markers.
“ It takes a whole village to educate a child” (p.151)
In our elementary school it takes everybody cooperating and communicating to educate our children. I’ve worked at schools where the teachers don’t. They are ineffective. There is no excuse for teachers not to work together in our age of communication. There are many options to communicate, get your act together and talk to other teachers! When all the teachers who work with a child are “ on the same page” they can help the student more effectively.
“…insufficient information about teaching strategies…” (p.140)
When I first started working as a TA, I realized I lacked information on strategies. I knew my material, but I had no idea how to teach a child with defiance disorder, how to help a child with LD make sense of a math concept, or how to deal with a class bullying problem. These are the things that should get taught and talked about in college courses. Since then I've seen many other college undergrads come into our school to work with no idea how to actually teach the knowledge they have because they don't have the strategies.
Collaboration is really the key to GREAT plans! Share ideas and take ideas its what counts in planning units and lessons. Google Aps is an awesome way to share and build on ideas with your colleagues.
ReplyDeleteWell, that's interesting because I received my undergraduate degree from Roberts and what I always complained about was that they always told us how to teach but they never told us what to teach. I guess that is the opposite of what you were sharing. They focused a lot on strategies but I would have been more excited with a happy medium of content and strategies. For example, teach me about world war II, then teach me how to teach it to students. Don't just tell me, "This is what you would do first, second, and third." To each there own...
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