Blog #7

Placement observations
Reaction to Readicide
Assignments

I have learned so many things during my placement. For the last several weeks of placement, my host teacher scheduled opportunities for me to observe every single Math teacher in the school. By observing each teacher, I was able to witness many strategies in action. Some of the things that I saw I do hope to repeat in my own teaching, other I hope to never repeat! One especially nice thing to see was a Math teacher who successfully used a frayer organizer. She said that she recently saw them at a conference and loved them. It was so encourahing to see them be used, that I tried one as a literacy engagement!
Because I have completed my placement, all of my actual implementation is finished. Now, it os just time to write everything up! I have finished my TWS (at least I have turned in a rough draft), so now I should be able to turn my focus to other assignments. I feel that having these literacy engagements as assignments has helped me to see how to really implement these various strategies. I believe this process has helped me to get some very real life experience as a teacher.
After reading Readicide, I am very concerned about the generation of students that we have in our classrooms now. I am glad to see some strategies inthe book that offer possibilities to fixing the problem. If teachers can be more aware of the problem and have ways of fighting it, then maybe we can begin to make some impact. It can be very discouraging to see students who are simply disconnected from the outside world. They know so much about celebrities and television, but nothing about their own nation. I think that it is important to keep a pulse on how our students are thinking and to find ways to get them interested in reading about real life.