Chapter 3!

I am the Discussion Director this week:)

Creative Connector:

One of the passages that hit home for me this most from chapter 3 was Mr. Michie's struggle with the afterschool self-contained classroom at the end of the day. The kids all know that they were placed in this class because they are "lower-level learners" and on this particular day, everything that could go wrong is going wrong! I was substitute teaching for a special education teacher at the end of the school year in May, and I was asked to pull 4 of the "troubled" students in the class and put them in a room together to work on a math packet so that the general education teacher could focus on the other students in the class. Part of me was frustrated with their behavior through that session and part of me felt terrible for them. Like the students in Mr. Michie's self-contained class, these students knew why they were pulled and just added to their frustrated behaviors. Another passage from the chapter that struck me was Armando's story. He explains that he wants to graduate and wants to be a better student and is very bright but at the very end of the chapter he is sitting in a parent-teacher conference and feels that he can't say anything to defend himself because the teacher is always right and will always win. This broke my heart because when I think back on my own experiences, how many times do I just think to sit back and let the students talk, instead of myself doing all the talking all the time? It made me think a lot about the students that frustrate me who honestly just need an adult to hear them out instead of shutting them down.

Essence Extractor:

Teacher's would learn much more about their student's personal health if they spent more time listening rather than talking.