Silent Cheerleaders
I wasn't planning on bringing my education books to school. I have them all nicely set up on my bookshelf at home, color coordinated just like before.
However, after being told to read the book "A Framework for Understanding Poverty" and nearly tearing my eyes out in pain and frustration at that book, (in depth post to follow explaining my critique) I decided that I may need some cheerleaders in my classroom to help encourage me when the going gets tough (and oh boy will it ever).
So my goal now is to prominently display a row of silent cheerleaders in the classroom. When I feel that I'm failing or am floundering around trying to figure out what in the world I have gotten myself into by agreeing to teach FIRST grade, I can just look over and see the smiling book spines of such wonderful thinkers as Guadalupe Valdés, Jerome Bruner, Carol Avery, the Freemans, the Banks, Ana Celia Zentella, Martin Covington, Sonia Nieto, and several others. These people are responsible for me ending up where I did, so it will be their job to keep me motivated as I find my way through the halls of my new school.
However, after being told to read the book "A Framework for Understanding Poverty" and nearly tearing my eyes out in pain and frustration at that book, (in depth post to follow explaining my critique) I decided that I may need some cheerleaders in my classroom to help encourage me when the going gets tough (and oh boy will it ever).
So my goal now is to prominently display a row of silent cheerleaders in the classroom. When I feel that I'm failing or am floundering around trying to figure out what in the world I have gotten myself into by agreeing to teach FIRST grade, I can just look over and see the smiling book spines of such wonderful thinkers as Guadalupe Valdés, Jerome Bruner, Carol Avery, the Freemans, the Banks, Ana Celia Zentella, Martin Covington, Sonia Nieto, and several others. These people are responsible for me ending up where I did, so it will be their job to keep me motivated as I find my way through the halls of my new school.
posted by Not Quite Grown Up... at 10:07 AM
4 Comments:
First grade? Wow...you are my hero! I teach second but first scares me, especially at this time of the year.
I am really looking forward to reading your synopsis on the book. I think that book is overused and has been for years!
Best of luck!
I'm interested in your critique, too. I was forced to read it prior to my first year as well.
I think you are going to do awesome this year. You are much more prepared than some of us were. I'd never taught at all prior to my first day!
I just found your blog, I'm also a first-year teacher (9th grade bio, eek). Best of luck!
If it's the book I'm thinking of, we were forced to read it for one of our education courses. I couldn't even finish it, it was so wretched. The day we were supposed to discuss it in class, it was a civilized riot. The poor professor had little to say after we were done with our opinions on it... she tried to point out some of the positives, but the information was so poorly presented, we refused to listen.
A book/theory I will recommend is "Teaching with Love and Logic" (you can probably Google "love and logic" and find their website, which has tons of good info). Now, we the teachers are not the parents, so there's little we can do when the parents are not doing their job, but they have some great ideas/suggestions for discipline/consequences/etc.
Good luck with your first year! It's tough, but you'll make it. The nice thing about teaching elementary is that the kids want to love you, and most of the time this also means the parents will want to like you, too.
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