When it comes to talking about standards and curriculum, I get even more excited for my student teaching. Since I will be in a private school, I am looking forward to being able to incorporate all of these domains without the pressure of standardized testing. Even though the school does keep track of the standards, the school still does tests every few years to make sure they are up to date with the instruction, but without the pressure.
This chapter was overwhelmingly helpful and long! But, I learned a lot. In the classroom I will be student teaching at, there is a big focus on interdisciplinary teaching and thematic units. The big project I will be planning and teaching will be a multi-genre research project in collaboration with science instruction where the students will choose an animal to write and research about in 3 different genres. This is a wonderful idea and I am excited to be a part of it!
The most interesting and surprising part of this chapter was when the author explained the controversial issues that may come up in teaching. I found this very helpful because I really did not think about thinking about controversial issues. I really appreciated their suggestion that we need to give an open-end and all sides to the issue. Process and content are both important to teaching controversial issues- the process of discovering what each student believes to be true, and content and true facts found by credible, un-biased sources.
On page 192, I found a great statement on teaching to middle school students. I think as a college student, I am already in a critical-thinking mindset, but middle school students may not be ready for someone to come and challenge everything they believe- that's what college is for!
"The primary difference is that the students with whom you will be working are not yet adults; because they are juveniles they must be protected from dogma and allowed the freedom to learn and to develop their values and opinions, free of coercion from those who have power and control over their learning" (Kellough 192).
Basically, if I am to be an outstanding middle school teacher, this needs to be daily on my heart and mind as I teach these students. I want my classroom to be a SAFE place where kids can learn freely and by the end, realize they enjoyed it almost every step of the way.
I agree, the controversial section was very interesting. We discussed this in ETE 375 and the book coincides with what we agreed in class. The best way to handle the controversial topics is not to push the information into a corner and ignore it, but to introduce the material from many different angles and let the STUDENTS decide for themselves. This not only helps avoid bias but also encourages critical thinking from our students and should hit home some affective domain while in the process.
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