Afterword: How We Wrote This Book-- And Why It Matters

The point of this book was to give new teachers the perspective of the students when it comes to learning and a school environment. The writers of the book asked new teachers what they were worried about when starting to teach and they then asked students to answer the questions.
The reason this book is good is because it gives us a chance to think about how students feel about school. I think it is good because we tend to either think as just teachers, or just students. However, to become good teachers we need to consider both parties.

Chapter 9: When Things Go Wrong

I completely agree that if a teacher does not come in confident, then the students are going to torture him/her. Students are supposed to respect a teacher and take orders from them. I think it is just natural when someone is new to test their strength.
We tested teachers in my middle school and high school, especially student teachers. Now that i think about it, we were horrible and it is going to be something I will feel in the future. However, if a teacher show confidence when they walk into the classroom then the teacher should not have any fears for the majority of their year. Students are going to misbehave at first but it should quiet down as the year goes on.

Chapter 8: Teaching Teenagers Who Are Still Learning English

One thing that I really did not like in this chapter was on page 151 when a student explained that a teacher assumed the student could not do the test because it was too difficult and would give her a B in the class as long as she showed up. That is not only fair to that student, but it is also not fair to the rest of the students.
This part actually made me ngry because I can not imagine a person who is supposed to teach, just assuming it is impossible and giving up. The point of being a teacher is to teach and not give up when a student is having a difficult time. The teacher in this instense did not even give the student a chance. I would probably cry too if a teacher just assumed I was not smart enough to do someting.

Chapter 7: Teaching Difficult Acacdemic Material

One thing I really liked about this chapter is that it said that teachers should challenge our students assumptions. I agree this so much because sometimes teenagers just assume that what their parents, peers, and others say is going to be true.
There are so many things that teenagers assume that we can make a "teachable moment". In the book, teachers had students define "ghetto" and then gave them the real definition. This will allow the students to be interested and relate the lesson back to the real world. I think it is a great idea to build lesson around assumptions students make.

Chapter 6: Motivation and Boredom

One thing that stuck out to me in this chapter was that it was very negative towards homework. I understand why students would not like homework but I think it is unrealistic to have a class without ever giving homework.
One of the reasons I noticed this part of the chapter was because my mentor teacher and I discussed the homework policy at Mt. Blue Middle. They are not allowed to grade homework, but my teacher was very against this. She thinks that it does not prepare students for the real world I agreed that a teacher is going to have to give homework sometimes.

Chapter 5:Teaching the Individual, Working with the Group

This chapter talked about know the different types of students that are in your classroom. There are a variety of them and there are deep reasons into why they act the way they do. One thing I can relate to in this chapter is trying to avoid being called on when I felt I did not know the answer.
In this chapter, students said they would look distracted or like they were taking notes when teachers were calling on people. They also said that they were so scared to get ridiculed from their peers and teachers because of the way they talked or if they go the answer wrong. In math and science classes I am one of those students. I feel that I will get the answer wrong so I will look distracted so I will not get called on. I even do this if I think I know the answer because I really do not want to look like a fool.

Chapter #4: Creating a Culture of Success

This chapter focused on giving students the chance to do well on assignments. I definitely believe that teachers should not assume that a student is not going to well on an assignment. If a teacher does this, then the teacher is just asking for the student to fail.
We should not punish students for not understanding something or for failing something. When a student fails something, it means that the student did not understand the topic or maybe there are factors at home stopping them from doing well in school. We can not just assume that a student was lazy and did not study. We also should allow make up work because we want to encourage learning instead of enforcing due dates strictly.

Chapter #3: Classroom Behavior

One thing that popped out to me in this chapter was on the first page when a girl Montoya says that she gets annoyed when students are disrupting the class because she wants to learn. This popped out to me because I was the same way in high school. I would get really annoyed when people would disrupt the class and I would also feel bad for the teachers because I felt people were being really rude to them.
It does ot shock me too much that a lot of students want to learn in the classroom because previous chapters already said that students want us to be excited and know the subjects we are teaching. We can also see the wanting to learn from students when they get frustrated with substitutes. Students want substitutes who know the content being covered in the classroom. They do not want a babysitter to watch over them. I remember teachers telling me in high school and middle school that substitutes were not baby sitters, but I always felt that they were because all they did was deal with behavioral problems.