Atwell opens up about the trials that come along with middle school classrooms, and how we can lead those trials to become tribulations. She discusses the psychological aspects of an adolescent in an effort to make us realize that adolescents’ behavior (mood swings, outbursts, social needs, etc.) is an uncontrollable force of nature (human). I really enjoy reading this chapter because I have great interest in why we act the way we do, when we’re teens, and how do we get the world around us to conform to our unpredictable, and most of the time, intolerable but natural behavior.
Judging from Atwell’s interpretation of the status quo, and the real reason behind it, why does it even exist still? If our educational leaders in this country are, or supposed to be, all for equal educational opportunity for every individual, then why is tracking still in effect? It is pretty obvious the upsetting effects of tracking so why do it? Is it really done to make teachers’ jobs easier? Teachers’ jobs are not supposed to be easy! Maybe it’ll be easier for “them” to answer my question, rephrased: “To make our teaching jobs less harder?” Teachers become teachers with one goal in me: to teach someone. And while we’re preparing to teach, we are taught that it’s going to be a tough job on one individual teaching hundreds of students, hour to hour, day to day, week to week, and year to year. Whether it makes it harder for us, we’re to be dedicated and committed promoting student learning. I’m not saying allow things for us to be hard so that we’ll be driven to insanity and depression (LOL), but I’m saying we can’t keep ourselves (as teachers) “safe” by tracking if it results in low and upsetting rates of student performance. We should look for other solutions, take risks, and drive ourselves to the BRINK of insanity (not all the way there LOL) if that’s what it takes to get our students to their fullest potential.
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ReplyDeleteAndrea, I don’t know if tracking is still in effect for making teachers’ jobs easier, but I do think that our government (school boards or whoever plans this stuff) does like to simplify students into nice, neat categories such as gifted or honors, special ed, or just regular. It seems to me that it’s about making the students fit into their little molds that have been predesigned. Unfortunately, it seems that whoever is calling the shots can’t see that it’s not working! Thank God for people like Atwell who go against the norms of the public school system.
ReplyDeleteI totally agree with you that a teaching job isn’t meant to be some easy way out! This is supposed to be our career, not some stupid job that we do just to pay the bills. And I think that if we want to truly have success and help our students, we’re going to have to work for it, but we can still be creative, original, and fun!
One of the main ideas that has stayed with me since reading chapters 8 & 9 of Atwell’s book is how individualized her teaching really is. It’s not set up to tailor to a gifted program; her methods work for all students – equally. What’s even more awesome is that she is able to give this individualized instruction with a class full of students while she conducts her reading and writing workshops. She even mentions how doing the workshop method actually ends up taking less time to do than grading quizzes, book reports, and all the other typical forms of assessment. And everyone learns and benefits from the teacher and from each other.
I really enjoyed reading more about the journal letters. Chapter 8 answered a lot of questions for me. I realized that even though the journals between her and the students play a significant part in her instruction, she doesn’t actually grade them. How nice – the students can actually just talk about their thoughts about a book without being right or wrong. I appreciated that she informed us on how to use the letters to get the students thinking about certain things, or “nudge” them in the right direction. It was really amazing to read some of the letters that these students wrote. For the level of thinking that some were doing, I couldn’t believe they were only in middle school! I love how she takes her students beyond the basics and helps to make it real to them. I love that she never pushes a particular book on them; they have freedom in choosing and in abandoning a book. I wish!!
Chapter 9 was wonderful. Really, I want to go be a teacher at her school. I think that the idea of assessing a student based on their progress is awesome. It’s not about knowing some random information for a specific test; rather, it’s about having that student grow as a reader and writer. How amazing would it be to play that part in someone else’s life – to be the one that showed them how to love it and be great at it? It’s also wonderful that she allows the students to have a voice in their evaluation. I think it forces them to honestly look at their work as a reader and writer. It gets them to take it seriously. I loved the idea of the students leading the evaluation conference with the teacher and the parents. It seems like the student actually has to defend his/her portfolio. How awesome!
What makes me sad about reading these chapters is the realization that this is not how things are currently done in EBR schools. I wonder how far we can push the limits in our future classrooms. I still want to know more ways to make Atwell’s methods work with the comprehensive curriculum currently in place in EBR.