Classics in the Classroom Chapter 6

There were several points I liked in this chapter. One of the first was the author talking about the use of comprehension tools. In the chapter the referred to one way using this is making a chart of the gods for the students that are reading the Odyssey. This is a way to further their knowing of what they are about to be reading and studying. Another thing that we could use is simply a character list from the internet before a student would read the text. Comprehension tools to me are a way of helping your students reach their highest potential point of learning. A lot of times teachers will dive into lessons and won't give any background on the information that they are teaching.

One of the other points I loved in this chapter was on page 97. There were 4 points the author made that I believed summed up key points of teaching.

1. Being a teacher means being a learner- although we are going to be the ones teaching, it doesn't mean we can ever stop learning. We learn from other teachers ways to better our classrooms and lessons, and we learn from our students how to help convey a message or meaning in a better way to them. We can never close our minds to new ideas and approaches.

2. However much you think you know, it is always worth thinking some more-again I think this is very similar to the above statement, but it corresponds with my life goal of "Never being satisfied." When you think you know everything, someone out there knows it better.

3. Whenever you find yourself in a quandary, read the research- there will be times where we won't know what to do in our classrooms. We will be stuck either with a lesson or with a student of ours and we are going to have to go get help. We need to look to research for how to deal with such things.

4. Teaching well can be thrilling- we all need to be excited about our jobs. When we create lesson plans and teach our students they are going to only be as into it as we are. Like Dr. Kist we need to be enthusiastic about our approach in order for our students to feel the same. We are going to teach well and it's ok to be excited about it because that is what we have worked for these past 4 years.