Blog #1

It would seem that genuinely caring about the well-being of a student and how much they actually learn in your classroom is the best remedy for problems with illiteracy in schools. The scenario in the beginning of the chapter deals with “illiterate” students, according to the standardized testing system, and the school’s way of fixing the problem. The teacher in this scenario makes one of the biggest mistakes she can make which is being oblivious as to where your student is coming from. I do not expect to help my future students grow if I first do not understand where they are academically and socially when I first begin to teach. Another mistake the teacher is the story made is her assumptions that these students had the amount of resources needed to grow academically. I have to realize as a teacher, that not all students have computers at home, breakfast in the morning, or available parents to help the students with their homework. I intend to spend special time and give my undivided attention to going above and beyond merely giving lectures in a classroom to perhaps, highly low socioeconomic students. The last mistake I observed with the teacher in the story is that she was more concerned with the high pressure from the school for acceptable TAKS scores rather than with each student’s personal progress. The only student mentioned by name, Derek, had received 160 points more on his previous tests than he ever had before and he was quite proud of this. The teacher should have commended Derek for his achievement instead focusing on all that is still left to accomplish. Part of this problem is the fault of the school principle who was only concerned with raising test scores; but as teachers, no matter what the circumstance, we always need to put the student and their development above anything else.