Chapter 10: Going Beyond the Classroom

The final chapter of this book tells us all about how to extend our lessons beyond the classroom. We have to try to instill the values and the appreciation for learning to go beyond school. The chapter gives us ideas to integrate useful learning in their everyday lives.

What I found most useful about this is the comfort that I can reach my students beyond the 80 minutes that I see them 2-3 times per week. The students told about how they actually appreciated their teachers setting up rendezvous with experts and people who can keep them on the right track. They WANT good role models.

Chapter 9: When Things Go Wrong

The part of this chapter that really stuck out to me was on page 171, "You really affect kids when you just do your job day in and day out, do it well--and everything doesn't have to be about bonding with the kids and changing their lives. That's artificial. The bond will develop on its own if you just do your job well. With a variety of personalities among teachers, a kid is guaranteed to connect with someone." The point is that just because students don't like you it does not mean that your unsuccessful.

I found this important to remember that we are professionals and our personalities will not always mix well with students. It is not our jobs our missions to make friends. The point of our job is to educate. Students will respect that in us, success is measured in true learning.

Chapter 8: Teaching Teenagers Who Are Still Learning English

This chapter talks about how to teach students who may be still learning English. I guess the most important part for me would be around page 151 where it talks about how we should not dumb down content just because students don't know English that well.

I appreciated this section because I have an exchange student in one of my classes from Slovakia. He has a thick accent and sometimes turns words around but he is very bright and is the most studious kid I have in class. I caught myself the other day giving him more allowance on some quiz questions because I had a more difficult time telling whether his answers were correct of not.

Chapter 7: Teaching Difficult Academic Material

Not surprisingly I was interested in the material on pages 140 and 141 "Caring About History." Cushman and the students suggest that material needs to be connected to real life for it to have any real meaning. Learning it because its the past and the it helps us understand the future is not good enough.

I don't know if what the students here said is really a good indicator of the opinions of most students. I know that when I was a high school student I would have that that a role-playing actor was cheesy and would have tuned out. I am happy however to read that students appreciate videos and discussions.

Chapter 6: Motivation and Boredom

My favorite part of this chapter is on page 113 where it discusses homework.

"Homework, if it's given right, can help you learn more. But, depending on the class, it's not always necessary." -Diana

The chapter tells us that students only gain from homework if it is used for next class.


The implications for possessing this information is obvious. I will try to avoid assigning homework that will not relate to future classes. Homework should only lead into what you are going to be doing in the future, the testing for what students know should be done in class and homework should never be busy work. It should be seen as preparation time for a job.

Chapter 5: Teaching to the Individual, Working with the Group

The section of this chapter that I took particular attention to was where it talked about working in small groups. We are told in this section from about pages 91-99 about how to make group work run smoothly.

I found this important because when I was in high school I absolutely dreaded group work. I would act like I liked it because everyone else did basically because it gave us an opportunity to socialize. I knew however that I would not actually learn and retain anything during this time though and that I would have to find some other way to comprehend the material. I'm still not convinced that group work is useful but I know no ways to help it at least have a clear goal and go better.

Chapter 4: Creating a Culture of Success

The part of this chapter that I have to keep in mind the most is the section on page 66, "Don't favor the students you think will do best." Students ask teachers to push all the students equally to improve and to not just favor the kids who are already achieving, these are not that kids that need the pushing.

During practicum I have a had to purposefully remove myself from a situation where I am talking only to the students that already understand what we are talking about already. It is a lot easier to talk to students that express an interest in the material of the class.

Chapter 3: Classroom Management

This chapter contained a lot of useful information regarding classroom behavior and how to prevent problems. On page 57 students talked about their frustration with substitutes. They complained about how they do not seem to have nearly enough training and its as if students are encouraged to misbehave since they have no direction.

I hope that I can use this information in the future in a couple of ways. First of all it is extremely important as I have already learned to leave plans for the substitute that are explicit and occupy enough time for the whole class. Also, as someone that hopes to be involved in administration some day I hope to be able to enact better policies regarding substitutes. I know that at my old school like many others subs. are called at random so as to not unevenly distribute the "work" to certain people. The fact is that there are some really good subs. as well as some that are very bad.