Chapter 4a & 5c

Chapter 4a

This chapter was very helpful in learning what NOT to do when one is teaching in a middle school setting. To start, one of the quotes that really grabbed my attention was the quote: “preventing a ship from sinking is much easier than saving a sinking one” (Kellough 142).  I feel that this quote really speaks volumes to the fact that it is important to be proactive about misbehaviors in the classroom to prevent further misbehaviors than avoid confronting bad behaviors and then try and implement a new action to correct the misbehaviors once they have gotten significantly worse down the road. After reading many of the tips I would have to agree with the book in nearly all of the recommendations. In my future classroom I feel that it will be important to speak at the correct volume. Speaking too loudly will irritate and disturb students where speaking too softly will not present you as an authoritative and professional figure. This is why it is important to find a volume in the middle of these two that is firm and professional. I also feel that it is important to not punish the entire class for one or two student’s negative actions. When I was in middle school I remember being assigned extra papers and assignments because another student was acting out. I felt that this was wrong because I chose to act appropriately and it was clear that the student acting out needed attention whether it was positive or negative attention so the student would continue to act out and did not care whether the rest of the class would get another assignment. One thing I want to make sure to use in my classroom is positive encouragement. Too often teachers focus solely on the negative and forget about acknowledging those for positive behavior as well. As a future teacher it will be one of my goals to have equal positive and negative acknowledgments. One thing I learned from this chapter was not to say “shhh.” I found this very interesting because many of the elementary school teachers that I have worked with always used “shhh” to quiet down their classrooms. “Shhh” is considered unprofessional and is just adding another noise to the classroom. All of these tips on what not to do were helpful in becoming aware of handling classroom misbehaviors.

Chapter 5c

Chapter 5c covered curriculum and all the subcategories of curriculum. Although I am not going to touch on all of the parts of a lesson plan as the chapter did, the importance of planning and having all of the key parts of a lesson plan was highly emphasized. There are different levels to planning. One needs to plan for the entire school year, the units and the lessons. I feel that co-planning is so much more beneficial to both students and teachers. I have been a part of co-teaching environments and it is amazing with the creative ideas and lesson plans that are put together and used to shape a fun learning program that the students will enjoy. With co-teaching each teacher can bring ideas to the table and use each other to bounce ideas off of one another. They can discuss what worked, what did not work and what to change. When I am a future teacher I would like to co-plan because it would be extremely difficult to develop an entire curriculum from scratch (especially my first year!). With help of the teachers around me who may have had more experience than I have, they can tell me what students have and have not responded to.