Jeffery D Wilhelm's book " You Gotta BE the Book" poses lots of interesting thoughts about students and reading. I enjoyed how he used his own experiences and turned them around into lessons to help teachers. I know of many teachers who would love to read this novel and I know I am going to be able to forward these ideas to them to help them within their classrooms.
Wilhelm describes on page nine what he believes a teacher researcher is. He states, "a teacher who is consciously questioning, observing, theorizing, testing, adapting, and learning something every day in the classroom”. This made me question whether or not the teachers whom I have encountered have had these qualities. I believe every teacher should be willing to learn everyday in the classroom.
This book is a very good resource for future teachers as well as teachers in the teacher-student relationship aspect. He states on page thirteen a teacher student contract. I thought that this was a fabulous idea to bring into the classroom. In my experience if a student believes you care about them and their learning than in turn they will care about themselves and their learning. As a long term substitute I have actually witnessed this idea first hand. Noting I work in a special education school in a low income area, there was a young boy who came into the classroom very upset and throwing things. He was constantly cursing about school, saying that it did not matter he wasn't going to do anything in life. His teacher, and therapist sat down with him and had him write out a contract to visualize what would help to make him successful in school, all three signed it. After this happening the student came into school with a much more positive attitude. This example very much shows that a simple contract, as described by Wilhelm, can bring about a lot of success in the classroom.
This book also begins to discuss the idea of New Criticism vs other literary critisism. I am curious to hear what all my blog followers have to say on this topic. How do you feel you want your students to look at the text? This is a very important question I feel should be posed to all Teachers of English.
I am very excited to continue reading this book and marking it up. I know that post school I am going to be using it's idea a lot and it is going to get passed all around the school in which i work.
I enjoyed reading about what you witnessed while being at the schools with the young student. It's great to hear that there are people involved in his life that care deeply about him and want him to have success. I have no doubts that you are going to be one of those teachers who cares about teaching the student and making sure that the student is able to feel at ease in the classroom.
ReplyDeleteI agree that I will definitely be using this text once I'm teaching. Only one teacher that I had growing up would I consider an avid teacher-researcher. She was in the process of getting her Master's when I was in 11th grade. She used my English class as her subject for the research. It was really cool to see the product of her research and recognizing who did what. I definitely want to do this with my students. It forms better relationships for many people in the classroom!
ReplyDeleteYou used the same quote as I did in your post! I also found his definition of a teacher exciting as well because there is so much more than just sitting in front of the class going over a lesson plan. I also liked how you linked what we read to your own experience in the classroom. The contract seems like a great idea to keep the student engaged in school.
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